


Lover's Wreck

by bardtothebone



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: #pirateboyfriends, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Antonio the Love Pirate, Big Willy Rocks My World, Bittersweet Ending, Drunken Kissing, Except not because she's actually alive (spoilers for Twelfth Night 1.1), Grief, Implied homophobia, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, Like Whoa, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, References to Shakespeare, Shipping on a Ship, Somewhat Inaccurate Geography, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, Unhappy Ending, Vomiting, brief dub-con, by secondary characters, by tertiary character, gratuitous Shakespeare references, like no seriously there is somehow a lot of vomiting in this, men being idiots, or at the very least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardtothebone/pseuds/bardtothebone
Summary: Sebastian expected to drown when his ship wrecked in a tempest. He did not expect to be rescued, much less by pirates. He certainly did not expect the troubling, magnetic charisma of the pirate captain, Antonio.In which pirates flirt via swordplay and banter, wills are stout, strong, and long, and Sebastian accidentally falls into a new identity, a crew of cutthroat pirates, and (just maybe) love.





	1. Act 1, Scene 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will try my best to update the tags as we go through each chapter, but let me know if I'm missing a warning.
> 
> In this chapter: near-death experience(s), vomiting, grief, minor character death (not really, if you've read the play, but hey), brief homophobic language, unintentional reference to Dante's Inferno
> 
> Title from the Gaelic Storm song of the same name.

_Water._

It’s the last thing he remembers.

Water: rain lashing the sails, sailors’ yells mixing with the roar of waves and the boom of thunder. Water, washing his sister overboard, just beyond his grasping fingers. Water, knocking his feet out from under him and carrying him away. Water, salty and fiery down his throat and up his nose, closing over his head.

Water.

He closed his eyes.

*

Some spark of life encouraged his legs to kick feebly, aiming for the thinner water. Air slipped away and dark bodies floated around him in the gloom.

His head broke the surface almost without his noticing, sudden noise assaulting his ears from the storm that had not yet calmed. Later, much later, he would realize human voices mixed in with the cracking of the ship and the wall of sound.

Just before the darkness claimed him, he felt something take hold of the collar of his shirt and _yank_.

 _Dark_.

*

_Sebastian stands in the practice yard, wooden practice sword in hand, feet planted in the soft springtime earth. His father is a dark, disapproving shadow at the edge of the yard. Dante stands across from him in the ring, an ugly smile twisting his handsome face._

_“Sequence five, Sebastian,” Roderigo orders, hands linked behind his back at soldier’s ease, goatee immaculately trimmed as usual. Sebastian moves forward, tries to lift the sword for the opening uppercut, but the sword is heavy, so_ heavy _in his hands; it drags him down. Dante advances, the grin still in place, and thwacks Sebastian_ solidly in the chest, against his ribs _. Sebastian burns,_ burns _, breath heaving painfully._

“Do that again, he’s trying to breathe.”

 _Another_ thwap _from the practice sword, wood connecting soundly against a chest already screaming in agony. He hears a thready wail of pain and distantly feels a twist of shame as he thinks it might be coming from him._

“Hey, ease up there, he might need those bones.”

“Do I tell you how to do your job?”

“Only every other day.”

“Then pretend this is the off day and let me do mine. A few broken ribs are worth a life.”

“And if they pierce a lung?”

“They won’t if they know what’s good for them.”

“…did you just threaten bones?”

“Hush and let me work.”

 _He’s writhing on the ground, practice sword a dead weight in his hand, his father’s disapproval a physical weight on his chest. He coughs explosively, rolls over and_ vomited, gagging _._

“Ugh!”

“No, that’s good. Keep going, lad, give the sea back Herself.”

_Roderigo crouches next to him, face creased with concern. His father is a stormy presence behind him._

_“Sebastian, are you well?” his instructor says, reaching out a hand that settles,_ cool, on his clammy forehead. He burned still, chest aching.

“Here, talk to him, that might bring him back. Lad, what’s your name?”

“Roderigo,” he whispered. _“Roderigo, what is happening to me?”_

_“You are making a mockery of yourself, as usual,” his father spits over Roderigo’s shoulder, and Roderigo’s face tightens further. “A duke must do better, especially against a merchant’s son.”_

_“You’ll be all right,” Roderigo tells him, low, his hand_ smoothing his hair off his forehead.

“You need to vomit some more, Roderigo. The seawater will kill you faster than a snakebite, else.”

Sebastian managed to half-open his eyes. Blurry shapes surrounded him, and light shone into his eyes, making his head throb more. His eyes stung. Roderigo, they had said. “Roderigo,” he slurred. Where did Roderigo go? Where was _he_?

"We heard you, lad," a voice said. "Bring up that seawater, now, I don't want to give you an emetic in your state."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," someone else said, and a fist slugged him hard in a particular soft spot of his gut. Sebastian opened his mouth to protest and vomited more saltwater instead, his throat burning along with the rest of him. Practiced hands rolled him to his side so he didn't choke as other voices exclaimed around him. He closed his eyes again.

_Dante stands over him, his face a rictus of twisted triumph, shaking out his fist._

_"Arrogant cocksucker," he sneers. "You think you could beat me?"_

_Sebastian struggles, but he's held down by unseen bonds. Panic blooms in his chest, chokes the air from his lungs. Dante squats down next to him._

_"You think you can cheat death?" he asks, and Sebastian spirals away_.

 

 

*

 

_“Sebastian!”_

_He heaves a put-upon sigh and closes his book, rolling off the bench he’d been lounging on. “What?”_

_His twin walks into the room, arm ties trailing. She spreads her arms. “Help.”_

_He rolls his eyes, unable to suppress a smile at her expression, which holds nothing but grumpiness. He moves to tie one arm, asking, “Don’t you have maidservants for this sort of thing?”_

_She arches an eyebrow as he deftly twists the ties together. “I do. His name is Sebastian.”_

_“Har har har.” He moves to the other arm. “You look very nice.”_

_Now it is her turn to roll her eyes. “Father bought me a new dress. I think he’s getting worried about my marital chances.”_

_“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Sebastian deadpans, and Viola swats him. Their father has been trying to find them both suitable matches with increasing desperation each year._

_“Oh, be quiet and help--” Viola trails off, her gaze focusing on something over Sebastian’s shoulder. “Seb...” He turns just in time to see the wall of water crash into the room, shattering glass and splintering wood. Sebastian reaches for Viola, but his legs won’t move, they_ won’t move _. She screams his name as the wave bears down on them both..._

Sebastian’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a great gasp of air. His lungs protested, seizing, and his breath caught in a fit of coughing. It felt like he had swallowed a thousand flaming daggers that were now stabbing him from the inside out. The hacking forced him to sit up and then double over, wheezing, arms wrapped around his middle protectively. A flicker of movement on his right warned him he was not alone an instant before the person spoke.

“So you survived,” drawled a voice, masculine and somehow both warm and edged. The dim light flashed off a blade, and Sebastian’s spine stiffened. “I had begun to think we would have to return another corpse to the embrace of Mother Sea.”

Sebastian scraped his own voice from his tattered throat. “Where am I?” His eyes were gradually adjusting to the gloom, enough to show him the rough cot he was lying on and a shadowy silhouette next to him, straddling a chair and flipping a dagger end over end.

“My ship,” the man said, a wealth of emotions in that one phrase that Sebastian was too tired to parse. His head pounded.

“What happened?”

“Ah, no, signor, I ask the questions here.” The dagger paused. “Are you a threat?”

Sebastian barked a laugh. He might not know where he was or whom he was talking to, but he knew the answer to that one.

“Do I look like a threat to you?” he said, holding up a hand so they both could see how it shook.

“Aye, maybe. But if you aren’t a threat, then why should I keep you?” The knife returned to its dance through the air. Whatever qualities this man had, subtlety was not one of them. Sebastian opened his mouth to answer and was seized with another fit of coughing.

“Could I have some water, if you please?” Sebastian rasped. The shadow sighed and got up, returning with a cup and a lantern that threw his face into shadowy relief—deep wells of darkness for eyes and mouth, nose jutting proudly outward. Sebastian traced the scar through the man’s right eyebrow with his eyes and noted the glint of gold in his ear. He took the cup but did not move to drink from it.

“Who are you?” Sebastian said. Teeth flashed in the lantern’s dim glow for a moment as the man leaned back carelessly in his chair. Sebastian was not fooled—there was coiled awareness in what he could see of the man’s body, a readiness to spring should the necessity arise. Sebastian had seen it in the veterans of the army back home: the hidden grace of a man who has seen much combat.

“The name’s Antonio,” the man said. “Well met, Signor Roderigo.”

“The good fortune is mine,” Sebastian said automatically, the rote of manners drilled into him since birth a comfort in the uncertainty around him. Before his mind could catch up with the man’s words, another cough tore its way out from deep in his chest.

A warm hand, browned by the sun and heavy with calluses, covered his own where it gripped the rough-hewn horn cup, pushing it gently toward his face.

“Drink, lad,” the man said, not unkindly. “I didn’t poison it—no point, for now at least.”

Sebastian ignored the threat, like he had the flipping dagger that had disappeared somewhere but that Sebastian had no doubt would be protruding from some part of his body if he tried anything nefarious. He drank greedily, but the hand guided his own away far too soon.

“Easy. Don’t want to make yourself sick.” Sebastian took a steadying breath as the man—Antonio?—studied him. “Already had to clean that up three times. I really didn’t think you were going to make it. Never saw a man swallow that much seawater and live before.”

Sebastian swallowed hard, tasting brine still. Dante’s twisted face danced before his mind’s eye. “Fortune spins Her wheel,” he said.

“Hmph.” Antonio leaned back again, leaving Sebastian’s hand a bit warmer. “So, Roderigo, whence do you hail?”

Sebastian hesitated, his mind blank. He knew this, he knew where he was from—there was something he was missing, something…

A tap barely preceded a door opening, spilling light into the room. Sebastian blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

“Cap’n, the other one’s awake,” a new voice said.

“So’s Roderigo,” Antonio replied. So he was the captain, Sebastian thought, filing that knowledge away even as he blinked again when he realized Antonio was referring to him by “Roderigo.” Why would Antonio call him by Sebastian’s armsmaster’s name?

Now that his vision was clearing, he was shocked to find Antonio about his own age, perhaps two or three years older. Lines of care marked his weather-worn face, making him seem older, but Sebastian had a knack for estimating ages. The lace cuff he had glimpsed by lantern light proved to belong to a linen shirt edged with frills and lace, with a maroon doublet layered over the top. The gold hoop Sebastian had spotted earlier matched rings on Antonio’s fingers. “Did you find anything out?” Antonio said as Sebastian’s head whirled.

“He’s a noble, sir,” the new voice said, as if answering an unspoken question. He was a few years older than Antonio, maybe four-and-twenty, and moved with the same easy grace of a trained fighter.

Antonio’s face shuttered, his eyes going flinty and hard.

“Dump him with sufficient provisions at the nearest shore,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “We have no use for nobles here.”

“Should I ask about a ransom, sir?” the other man said with the air of a man who knows the answer but asks the question for form’s sake.

“Not worth it, and you know it,” Antonio said harshly. The man saluted casually and left, shutting the door behind him and plunging the room back into the semi-dark. Sebastian spared a moment to lament how much harder it was to read Antonio’s face in this light, though it was no doubt intentionally so.

“So, Roderigo,” Antonio said, and time stood still for a moment, choices branching out in front of Sebastian. He could correct Antonio now, claim his name and birthright, and be put to shore along with the noble—Sir Marlowe, no doubt. Something yet held him back, bade him to hold his tongue. He listened.

“Who are you?” Antonio continued, and the spell was shattered. “What brings you here? And why should I let you live?”

Sebastian wracked his brain. He knew this, he knew it—

“I was escorting my cousin to her wedding,” he said, and even as he said it he knew it to be true. “We left from Palermo, headed to Venice.” His voice grew surer as he did. “Viola. Is she here? Can I see her?”

Something had further hardened in Antonio’s face at the mention of Venice, and at the question Antonio’s eyes dipped to the side and rose back to meet Sebastian’s.

“Palermo, eh? Why not sail to Rome and travel overland from there?”

 _Shrewd, indeed_ , Sebastian thought, even as he noted the dodge. “Viola gets violently ill in carriages, but ships don’t seem to bother her. Not to mention there are fewer brigands on the seas.” Antonio’s lips twitched, which emboldened Sebastian enough to try again. “Can I see her? Is she well?” _She must be worried sick!_

“Ah, lad,” Antonio sighed. He shut his eyes, and cold dread began to gather in Sebastian’s belly.

“There is something I don’t remember.” It wasn’t a question.

“Aye.” The word was a reluctant gust of breath more than a response.

Sebastian screwed his courage to the sticking place. “What happened?”

Antonio sighed, leaning forward so the chair’s two front legs thudded dully down on the floor.

“There was a storm. Common, this time of year. Your ship was a merchant vessel, am I right?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said distantly. There was something unutterably painful lurking just at the edge of his thoughts, a vital piece of knowledge he wasn’t sure he wanted to catch. “It was the fastest and cheapest way to get there.”

“Aye. Well.” Antonio cleared his throat. “Merchant ships, they’re built to be fast and light. Not much use in a storm.”

“What are you saying?” Sebastian said, ice beginning to creep through his veins.

“It wrecked,” Antonio said bluntly. “No survivors, except for you and that posh git bound for land.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

The sea seemed to roar again in Sebastian’s ears as the room tilted. Antonio was still talking, but it seemed to come from very far away. “Found him clinging to a spar and you just trying to stay afloat. No one else that we could find. It were a nasty one.” A warm weight settled on Sebastian’s shoulder, and it took him a moment to realize it was Antonio’s hand. “You really didn’t remember.” It was not a question.

“No,” Sebastian said, trying and failing to blink back tears as his mind echoed him, chanting _no, no, no_ over and over. It couldn’t be. Viola couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. Air deserted him, though he tried his best to gulp it in. He buried his face in his hands, his whole being silently howling its grief.

“I’m sorry, lad,” he heard Antonio say softly next to him. His body shook with sobs he refused to let out, not yet, not with danger yet but an arms-length away.

“Why me?” he couldn’t help but whisper, the words strangled. He felt more than saw Antonio shrug next to him.

“You might say God, or someone watching over you,” he said. “Maybe you have a purpose yet to fulfill. Me, I say sheer dumb luck.” He reached down next to the chair and grabbed a bottle, offering it to Sebastian. “Here, drink up.” Sebastian obeyed, coughing as the crude alcohol burned its way down his already-raw throat. It settled in a pool in his belly, a spot of warmth in what had otherwise gone numb.

“Get some rest,” Antonio said, getting to his feet. “You’ve been ill, and had a shock. We’ll talk later.”

He was halfway across the room when Sebastian managed to croak, “I can fight.” With Viola gone, why not? Iachimo could look after the estates well enough: God knew he complained enough about Sebastian just getting in the way. They all would think he was d—gone, along with Viola. What did it matter? Antonio paused, a hand on the door, and turned back slightly.

“What?”

“What I can do for you,” Sebastian said. “I can fight. I can help you.”

A chortle broke from Antonio as if without permission, surprising them both. “Aye, lad, you’ve already proven yourself a fighter. Get some sleep.” With that, he left, and a wrung-out and heartsore Sebastian closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep.


	2. Act I, Scene 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implication of deadly duels, cruel dramatic irony (sorry not sorry)

Antonio, as it turned out, was a pirate. Sebastian had suspected, of course—dressed like a dandy, obvious fondness for gold—but it wasn’t until he was tottering around on deck under the watchful eye of the ship’s medic that he realized the ship flew no colors.

The ship was a swirl of action and cheerful swearing on the open sea. Sebastian caught a glimpse of Antonio, one of the few familiar faces, talking to a couple of men up on the fo’deck. One of them Sebastian recognized as the man who had come to his sickroom to report on Sir Marlowe. Sebastian spared a thought to wish him well, left alone on an unfamiliar shore. What a wretched fate.

He wobbled, still unsteady on his feet, and the physician caught his upper arm to steady him. Sebastian took the opportunity to ask about the vaguely familiar straw-haired man with Antonio and learned it was Pietro, the first mate. Before he could say more, a sailor lurched between them, good-naturedly cursing them for getting in the way. Sebastian and Erasmo, the physician, made their way to the rail and simply watched the chaos.

“They don’t seem very fierce,” Sebastian remarked, watching Antonio put Pietro in a headlock. Erasmo followed his gaze and smiled.

“Ah, young Antonio,” though Erasmo couldn’t be more than five years Antonio’s senior. “He’ll fool you. He’s usually fair, but he didn’t become captain by being nice.”

“What do you mean?”

Erasmo looked at him in surprise. “The tradition is that a sailor can challenge the captain to a duel for the captaincy. Whoever wins is captain.”

“And whoever loses?” Sebastian said, though he was fairly sure he already knew the answer. Erasmo shrugged, and Sebastian nodded.

“Has Antonio been challenged?”

“Three times,” Erasmo said, wavering toward pride. Sebastian looked back at Antonio, who had released Pietro and was now conversing rapidly with a large black man Sebastian later learned was called Nigel. “As I said, he’ll fool you. Those three underestimated him at their peril.”

Sebastian took a gamble, unsure how much he was trusted. “What does he have against nobles?”

His gamble failed as Erasmo’s face shuttered. “Have a care for your tongue, boy,” he growled, shoving off the rail and stalking off. Sebastian looked after him helplessly before giving a mental shrug and turning to watch the sea. The sun felt wonderful on his bare arms after so long inside. A sea breeze ruffled his hair. It was hard to believe that less than a week ago this calm sea had been a hellish tempest.

“Scared off your chaperone, did you?”

Sebastian smiled slightly as Antonio came up behind him and leaned on the rail next to him, loosely crossing his tanned, muscular forearms and squinting as he looked to the horizon. “I thought you would be more trouble than you’re worth.”

“I haven’t had a chance to prove myself yet,” Sebastian said, and Antonio wagged a finger at him and said, “Vomit. Three times. All over my spotless deck. You have much to make up for.” There was no heat behind the words.

They stood together in companionable silence, the chatter of the sailors and the snap of the sails keeping silence at bay.

“Where are we headed?” Sebastian finally said.

Antonio smirked, said, “Wherever the wind takes us.” _Typical sailor_ , Sebastian thought. “Why, is there somewhere you wish to go?”

Sebastian was silent for a long moment, listening to the heave of the sea, the cheerful yells of the sailors.

“There was, before,” he said. “Now?” He shrugged.

Antonio looked at him sidelong. “When you offered to fight…did you mean that, or were you just trying to save your life?”

“Not much left to save,” Sebastian said, the words sour in their honesty. What, indeed, was left? A loveless marriage to a child with spots and crooked teeth, promised a year hence? Gambling and dicing away his inheritance, a void forever in his heart where his sister once resided? Oh yes, he would have lost her to her marriage, but this, this was final in a way her fiancé in Venice never was. He wondered when his heart would truly accept that she was gone.

It was Antonio’s turn to be silent. When he spoke, it was with care. “Most of the crew joined on when they thought they had nothing left to them. They found something here, in time.”

Sebastian turned to stare at Antonio, incredulous. He couldn’t truly be offering what Sebastian thought he was, could he? Surely second chances were not this easy. Antonio kept his steady gaze on the horizon.

“Is that an offer?” Sebastian said finally.

“How long, do you think, until you’re fully recovered?” Antonio said neutrally in response.

Sebastian laughed. He laughed until he was clutching his sides and wheezing, tears running down his face. He couldn’t…he wasn’t…a _perfect stranger_ …

Antonio waited out the hysterics, unflappable. A sailor hailed him once, but Antonio waved him off, eyes on Sebastian.

Sebastian quieted, eventually, lying on Antonio’s precious deck and staring at the achingly blue sky, tears drying on his cheeks. It was an offer, and he wanted to take it. Putting the ludicrousness of both of those statements aside, he took stock of himself. Erasmo had said the problem was mainly dehydration and exhaustion. He wasn’t feeling very strong, but...

“A couple of days,” he said. Antonio’s expression betrayed nothing. Taking another chance, Sebastian added, “More, if Marco keeps making that slop he served last night.”

Antonio’s eyebrows rose, and he looked about to scold Sebastian, but instead he rolled his eyes and barked out a laugh.

“His swordplay is better than his cooking,” he said, chuckling again when Sebastian muttered, “Not saying much.”

“I’ll hold you to that in two days,” Antonio said, straightening and starting to walk away.

“What happens in two days?” Sebastian called after him.

Antonio turned and gave a mock courtly bow, eyes glittering with mirth.

“Why, Signor Roderigo, you show me how you can fight.”

*

They provided him with a rapier, at least, and not a cutlass. Sebastian had explained that he had been trained with a group of lads under a nobleman’s instructor, which the pirates found hilarious. Across the cleared stretch of deck, Antonio had stripped down to breeches and boots and was swinging his own blade experimentally. His broad chest, muscled from a life of sailing and fighting, gleamed in the sunlight. Sebastian wrenched his eyes away from tracing the scars across Antonio’s broad shoulders and the taper of his waist. He bounced on the balls of his feet and swung his arms to test his capabilities. Not the best shape he’d ever fought in, but not the worst, either. He accepted the rapier from Erasmo, who was grinning with the rest of them, insult apparently forgotten, and hefted it. It was lighter than he was used to, but not by much. The hilt glittered with gems that sparkled as the sun hit them.

That the crew was excited was an understatement: Sebastian hadn’t felt such a feverish air of festivity since his father had taken him to Carnival. By now Sebastian could name most of the faces in the crowd that was calling encouragements and taking bets. Antonio apparently seldom fought when it was not a matter of survival, and not a few crew members had noticed the fighting stances Sebastian had naturally fallen into when trying to keep his balance on the pitching ship.

“Ready?” Antonio called. Sebastian flicked his sword a few times, trying to adjust to the weight, and nodded, stepping forward. He saluted Antonio with the sword, drawing incredulous laughs and jeers from their audience. Antonio looked surprised for a moment before grinning and bringing his sword up in a mocking salute of his own, eyebrow raised challengingly. They brought their blades level, tapped them lightly together, and Antonio sprang.

Sebastian reacted unthinkingly, the moves drilled into him over the years by the man whose name he had taken: parry, strike, defend, _footwork_ , Sebastian! Antonio fought like he seemed to live his life: single-mindedly, determined, but shrewd, with about three plans for every move. Defeat, it seemed, was unthinkable for Antonio. Sebastian yielded ground at first, unused to the deck swaying beneath his feet even in a relatively calm sea and still weakened from his ordeal, but he soon rallied. It became increasingly clear that the two were well-matched as they chased each other across the ship, scattering bystanders who cheered them on with encouragement and curses alike. The metal of their blades flashed and clanged in the sun.

It was over in an instant: Sebastian lunged only to find a blade tip at his throat, a very smug Antonio holding his rapier at a killing angle.

“Do you yield?” he said, at least having the decency to be out of breath. Sebastian dropped his sword and held up his hands.

“I yield,” he gasped, clutching his side where a stitch was forming. The sword was removed and Antonio clapped a warm hand on Sebastian’s bare shoulder.

“You can fight, at that,” Antonio said, and Sebastian looked up to find Antonio’s eyes twinkling with approval. Antonio embraced him, ignoring the sweat that clung to them both. “Welcome aboard.”

Sebastian stared. “But...you defeated me.”

Antonio gave a self-effacing shrug with one shoulder and flapped a hand. “There’s only one man who’s ever bested me in a swordfight, and he’s dead now,” he said without offering further explanation. “No one expected you to actually win. But—“ and here was that bright, dazzling smile—“you gave it a good shot. Welcome to the crew of the _Destiny_ , Roderigo.”

There was a small uptilt to the end of the statement that pushed it toward a question, a question that was naked in Antonio’s eyes. There was a hushed moment when Sebastian could say, thank you but no thank you, put me to shore. Antonio was letting him decide, giving him choice in a way no one in his life ever had. And for that gift alone, there really was no choice.

Sebastian grinned back and held out his hand. A grin that tried to hide its relief split Antonio’s face as he reached out in turn and shook Sebastian’s hand. The rest of the crew swarmed them then, and anything else that might have been said was lost in the crowd. Erasmo rolled his eyes at the small cuts each had sustained and refused to use his precious bandages on them. He and Antonio bantered back and forth over it—“So you expect me to just have a bloody shirt?” “You don’t have to wear it right now, and it’s not as if you don’t have three others.” “Yes, well.”—as Pietro and Marco gently grabbed the back of Sebastian’s neck and less gently pounded his back in enthusiastic congratulations.

“I haven’t seen anyone hold out against the captain for that long!” Marcus said, eyes bright with admiration.

“I have,” Pietro contributed. “But not in a very long time. Well fought, Roderigo.”

“Thank my instructor,” Sebastian said, starting to regain his breath. “I never believed him when he insisted that the early morning training sessions in the rain would pay off.”

Antonio had detached himself from Erasmo and his crowd of unsurprised but still enthusiastic supporters and made his way back to Sebastian. He gripped Sebastian’s elbow in another wordless gesture of approval, and something not unpleasant turned over in Sebastian’s stomach.

“Now you’re ready for a raid, right boys?” Antonio said. The crew cheered in agreement.

 _Well_ , thought Sebastian. _I suppose I am a pirate now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fight scene: https://youtu.be/1ofKJ6UFv60?t=8m53s


	3. Act I, Scene 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: non-explicit violence, brief dub-con (kissing)--characters are drunk, masturbation (NSFW), homophobia, internalized homophobia, internalized biphobia

He wasn’t really, though, until Antonio appeared in the crew’s quarters and bellowed for them to get up about a week later, a week of Sebastian scrubbing decks and climbing rigging until he felt as hale as he ever had. The captain looked like he had just rolled out of bed, barefoot and clad only in a pair of loose trousers, but his expression was alert and full of feverish glee as he roared at them to get their asses out of their bunks.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Lorenzo slurred. There was nothing of the dangerous, wary edge to Antonio that meant they were under attack, so he elected not to exercise his ability to come fully awake at a moment’s notice.

“Get ready, gentlemen,” Antonio said, all but rubbing his hands together in glee. Grins began to appear around the room as the more experienced crewmembers caught on. Sebastian cracked open an eye at the excitement that suddenly crackled in the air and promptly shut it again. It was too early to deal with a surprise sleep-rumpled Antonio, particularly not when he had that manic glint in his eye.

“Paolo says we should be in range in half an hour,” Antonio said. “Hop to it, gentlemen!”

The room was overtaken in a flurry of movement as the men cheered and rolled out of their hammocks, reaching for clothing and weapons. Sebastian sleepily caught the arm of Lorenzo, who happened to be closest.

“What’s going on?” he said, fighting off the haze of dreams that lingered still. Lorenzo’s grin flashed in the dim light.

“We’ve spotted a target.”

*

 

Sebastian expected the ship to fly the white flag as soon as the _Destiny_ fired a warning shot from their cannons; it’s what his captain would have done. Instead, the ship—a Turkish merchant, by the sleek lines and slanted sails—fired a broadside of her own. Sebastian felt the deck shake at a near miss as the two ships turned about to face each other. He stood between Pietro and Nigel, nerves and excitement unfurling in his stomach.

“You ready, lad?” Pietro asked from his right, grinning, eyes somehow faraway as he tracked the other ship. Someone had thrust a grapple into Sebastian’s hands in the confusion of getting ready; he already had a rapier on his hip, a pistol tucked into his pants, and a swath of Antonio’s maroon wrapped around his upper arm.

“Always,” Sebastian returned, used to the push and pull of bravado. He eyed the rigging of the merchant ship doubtfully, hands curling unfamiliarly around the cool metal of the grapple.

Warm hands enveloped his own, deftly rearranging them, and Sebastian looked, startled, into Antonio’s warm brown eyes.

“Swing this end and aim for the sails,” Antonio said, voice low, soothing. One of the knots in Sebastian’s throat loosened. Antonio unfurled a few lengths from the coil of rope and demonstrated even as he tracked the other ship’s progress. “Try to catch onto a solid bit of rigging; we don’t want to lose you to the sea before you get to have a bit of fun. HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed suddenly, thrusting the rope and grapple back into Sebastian’s hands and striding down the line of men. A few seemed to be praying, but most looked at the merchant ship with hard, hungry excitement. “AND…FIRE!”

The deck shuddered again as the _Destiny_ ’s cannons let off another volley. A cheer went up from the men as one cannonball sheared off the merchant’s fo’mast. There would be no easy escape for them now.

The ships were drawing level now, and Sebastian clutched the rope tighter as he saw the scared faces on the ship across from them.

Pietro hollered, and the men of the _Destiny_ sprang into action. Sebastian worked the grapple around a few times, trying to find its balance. After a few false tries, he managed to hook onto a piece of the merchant’s rigging that stood up to the test of a few sharp tugs. Sebastian found a grip on the rope, looked down, and hesitated. The water, deceptively peaceful-looking for how it tried its damnedest to kill him scarce days ago, was a long way down, and the distance between the ships suddenly seemed to triple as he looked at it.

A large presence stepped up onto the rail beside him.

“Not going to duck out on me now, are you?” Antonio said, readying his own grapple. He must have sensed Sebastian’s panic, for his voice was gentle. Then he arched a challenging eyebrow at Sebastian, and all the nerves disappeared, transmuted into wild, heedless daring by the alchemy of Antonio’s regard (not without a twist low in his stomach, but that was the nerves, of course it was).

Sebastian launched himself off the rail with a yell, barely registering Antonio’s whoop as he followed. The flight was glorious, the wind whipping at his face and ruffling his clothes, the world blurring around him. He hit the deck feet first and rolled, narrowly avoiding a sword thrust. Then his own sword was out, and the next blur of time was the confusion of survival that he was already coming to relish. He never felt so alive as when he thought he was about to die. At some point he came back-to-back with Antonio, and they fought off what had to be the guards for the ship from there.

Eventually the merchants gave into their inevitable defeat and surrendered. Antonio accepted their surrender graciously from the spitting-mad leader of the merchants, who they learned was called Angelo—once they tore him away from berating the survivors of his hired guard, that is.

“Where are you bound?” Antonio inquired in a friendly manner, once Pietro had led Angelo to the captain.

After some judicious prodding on Pietro’s part, Angelo reluctantly divulged, “Venice.”

“Ah, Venice!” Antonio said, looking around at his suddenly laughing men. “’Twere years since I was in Venice. Some took exception to my presence.” Something unutterably sad shadowed his face for a moment and then retreated to where it pulled at the corners of his eyes and mouth, leaving a sour twist to his lips. “Who do you work with there?”

“My cousin Alfredo Brabantio has close connections with the duke,” Angelo said, puffing himself up. “He said he could procure an audience with the duke to try to sell my wares to a more…refined clientele.” Angelo cast a look of distaste over the assembled pirates.

“And what wares are those, exactly?” Antonio said, but Angelo clamped his mouth shut and refused to say more, despite Pietro’s increasingly furious jabbing. His silence was soon irrelevant, though, for Marco and Julio emerged from the hold looking as smug as cats that had just gorged themselves on cream. Marco crossed over to whisper in Antonio’s ear while Julio stood off to the side, grinning like an idiot. An answering smile soon split Antonio’s face, lighting up the whole deck (or so it seemed to Sebastian), and his crew, recognizing something in his expression, began to cheer.

Angelo, as it turned out, was a goldsmith. Pietro and Marco restrained him as the rest of the crew brought his cargo on deck, preparing to offload it to the _Destiny_.

“Please!” Angelo begged piteously. “I’ll be ruined! Ruined, with no way to get home to Ephesus or to care for my family!”

His pleas tugged at Sebastian’s heart, but Antonio merely scoffed.

“If you haven’t insured your cargo three times over, I will eat my hat and drink seawater,” he said. “Oh, wait, Roderigo did that for all of us.” Sebastian scowled good-naturedly as Antonio turned to his crew. “Take it all.”

“No!” Angelo cried. “Please, sir, mercy! Leave me something!”

Someone in the crowd of pirates mumbled something about not taking on a pirate ship if you wanted to keep your belongings.

Antonio eyed Angelo skeptically. “I was going to tell you this ere we departed, but we have had word that Turkish ships are gathering to launch an attack on an Italian port—no one can tell which one yet.” The color drained from Angelo’s face, and some sympathy graced Antonio’s face and voice as he continued, “All anyone can guess is that the duke will call his best general up. So you see, sir, we will likely not have another opportunity like this for a good while, not with the Moor patrolling the Middle Sea.”

“But sir!” Angelo protested once he had gotten his wits about him. “If what you say is true—and I have no doubt that it is,” he added hastily as scowls appeared around him—“then I will likely not return home for a time. I will need some of my crafts to tide me over.”

“What would you have me do?” Antonio said.

“Leave me my finished jewelry,” Angelo said immediately. “With it, I can fund new supplies to make more.”

“And my men?” Antonio said. “What of them?”

Angelo had the balls to roll his eyes. “Sir, you take with you two crates of 32-carat pure gold. I believe you and your men do just fine.”

Antonio stroked his beard. Sebastian, standing by his elbow, heard him mutter to himself, “I took to sea so that I _wouldn’t_ deal with Venetian merchants.” Sebastian bit back a grin even as he wondered just what had happened to Antonio in Venice.

“Very well, merchant,” Antonio said at last. “I will leave you all but one crate of your crafted gold.” Mutters broke out among a few of the crew, but Antonio quelled them with a glance, backed up by a glare from Pietro. Antonio raised his voice slightly. “Far be it from us, who have all experienced poverty at some point, to deprive you of your means of living.” Any remaining grumbles ceased.

“Thank you, sir,” Angelo said. Another merchant might have prostrated himself at Antonio’s feet to make an unctuous show of gratitude, but Angelo saw the slight lift to Antonio’s eyebrow as the warning it was and kept himself upright. “I am sure, to reward your generosity, my cousin will speak to the Duke on your behalf.”

Sebastian was unsure if the offer was ironic, but Antonio appeared to take it as it was and bristled.

“I do not deal with nobles,” he said, voice all but dripping with disgust, the same shadow from before darkening his face. “Particularly not those of Venice.” He all but spat the name of the city. Angelo lifted an eyebrow of his own as if to say “more fool you” but said nothing. Antonio wheeled on his men and started barking orders, expression thunderous. Pietro looked like he was about to say something but changed his mind, instead helping his fellows separate out the crates they were taking and rigging them to get to the _Destiny_. Sebastian elected to help sort the crates, not wanting Antonio to turn his dark scowl on him. Angelo was back in his element, cheerfully yelling at sailors to get their grubby paws off, that was the wrong crate. More than a few frowns were appearing among the crew of the _Destiny_. Sebastian put a hand on Angelo’s shoulder.

“Sirrah, why don’t you show me how to tell the crates apart,” he said gently. Bound by etiquette, Angelo visibly deflated as he began to explain his system. Someone patted Sebastian on the back for that, but when he looked up, no one would take credit by meeting his eyes.

It was only later that Sebastian began to wonder why the thought of Antonio turning his stormy glare on him made his stomach cramp so uncomfortably.

 

*

 

Rather unsurprisingly, the crew broke out a cask of French wine to celebrate their good fortune. Marco pulled a fiddle from somewhere, and soon he was leading the men in a rousing chorus of “Thou Knave.” Julio pulled someone—Sebastian couldn’t see whom—into an impromptu jig. The air was balmy, with a breeze dispersing the worst of the humidity from the air, and the wine was heavy and sweet. Sebastian leaned back against some crates that he had padded with his jacket and watched the proceedings with amusement. The men had toasted the success of his first raid earlier (though they were toasting just about everything in sight, so Sebastian wasn’t too embarrassed), and the wine had spread a welcome gentle warmth through him. A few of the men came over from time to time for a quiet word, but eventually they let themselves be pulled back into the boisterous chaos of the party. At one sober moment Sebastian noticed a watchful silhouette in the crow’s nest and blessed Antonio’s strict discipline as a tension he hadn’t even realized was in the back of his mind eased. No one would be sneaking up on them tonight, though the men were hardly being quiet.

A body smelling strongly of alcohol flung itself down next to Sebastian, and he smiled slightly as he turned to see who it was, only to have his stomach flip when he came face-to-face with a beatifically smiling Antonio. In hindsight, Sebastian should have seen this coming—Antonio always seemed to have one eye on him no matter where they were. He couldn’t account for the sudden rapid beating of his heart, though, not when the wine had relaxed the rest of his body.

“Roderigo,” Antonio slurred, flinging an arm around Sebastian. Sebastian felt the familiar twinge of guilt when he heard his assumed name, but this time, it was overpowered by the glow of contentment. “Roderigo” fit him, now, in this new life Antonio had given him, the life sealed today: it was a more comfortable name, one that didn’t smack of nobility quite as much as “Sebastian” did (nor did it have ties to family and heartbreak that Sebastian even now flinched away from). He found himself the focus of Antonio’s disconcertingly clear scrutiny. “I knew you could fight, but that battle today—that were a thing of beauty.”

“You helped,” Sebastian pointed out, though he couldn’t suppress the warm bloom of emotion the compliment produced, warmer even than the effects of the wine.

Antonio shook his head and winced. Sebastian could only imagine the world was sloshing around him. “Together,” he said, the hand on Sebastian’s shoulder tightening. Sebastian found he couldn’t look away from Antonio’s eyes, which were burning with something Sebastian couldn’t quite identify.

“We make a good team,” Sebastian croaked out, his mouth having gone suddenly, mysteriously dry. He licked his lips, and Antonio’s eyes darted down to rest on his mouth.

“Indeed we do,” Antonio said, soft, husky. His other hand, warm and big and rough with the calluses of his life, brushed back a stray lock of Sebastian’s hair and then moved down to touch his cheek. Sebastian’s breath hitched, his heart speeding up, and before he could quite know what was happening Antonio’s hand had slid to the back of Sebastian’s head and was pulling Sebastian into a kiss.

Sebastian nearly jerked back in surprise, but Antonio’s hand held him fast. He would pull away, he should, he must. He slid his hands up to Antonio’s shoulders to push him off. He would disentangle himself from Antonio’s broad embrace and impossible warmth and hard muscles…but Antonio’s lips were soft, if a bit chapped, and he tasted sweet, like wine and summer. Sebastian found himself pressing back against Antonio, molding his lips to fit Antonio’s. The hands on Antonio’s shoulders slid back, one to bury itself in his hair and cradle his head, one to rest on his strong neck. Antonio’s mouth parted on a pleased gasp, and Sebastian took the opportunity to suck lightly on Antonio’s bottom lip. Antonio retaliated by tracing Sebastian’s lips with his tongue before slowly swiping it inside Sebastian’s mouth, and Sebastian moaned involuntarily. The touch of their tongues was exhilarating, a hot slide of saliva and dangerous promise. Sebastian felt his will swelling, a situation made less embarrassing by the sinful mouth and the hot pressure against Sebastian’s thigh that told him Antonio was having the same response.

At length, they eased apart, panting in the warm night air. Somehow, none of the crew had yet noticed them, tucked away as they were in their shadowed corner. Sebastian’s lips throbbed, and he tried to summon the regret he knew he should be feeling, but it danced outside his reach as he took in Antonio’s rumpled appearance and his dazed, soft expression. Antonio reached out and ran a thumb along Sebastian’s spit-slick, kiss-swollen mouth, making Sebastian shiver despite the warmth of the night. Antonio smiled, opened his mouth—

\--and vomited on the deck at Sebastian’s feet.

 

*

 

“Come on, you big oaf, help me out,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth as he hauled a slumping Antonio into the captain’s cabin. Antonio mumbled something indecipherable, and Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“You would probably say this is payback,” he muttered as he heaved Antonio onto the bed—a bed! With a mattress and everything! Being captain apparently had its advantages—“for soiling your precious spotless deck.” Antonio grumbled a bit and rolled over away from the light leaking in from the deck. Sebastian sighed and manhandled Antonio out of his shirt and boots, ignoring the faint, half-hearted protesting sounds. After placing an empty bucket next to the bed, Sebastian began to leave. He made the mistake of looking back.

The dim light from the open door limned Antonio’s sprawled form, softened his sharp lines. His face was relaxed in sleep, more open than Sebastian had ever seen it, apart from the moment right after the kiss—which Sebastian was going to stop thinking about immediately. His eyes, without his permission, took in the muscled glory of Antonio’s bare chest, the trim waist, the strong thighs and swell of the ass.

Antonio made a small sound and curled in on himself, startling Sebastian from his reverie. Sebastian’s heart pounded as he was seized with a sudden desire to climb into the bed with Antonio, to curl himself around the body that was so hardened and yet so vulnerable, to feel the puffs of his breath against his own cheek, to sleep cradled in safety and comfort and wake to Antonio’s burning eyes and soft lips…

His dick begged for attention as his imagination wandered, and Sebastian bolted like a frightened rabbit lest Antonio make some other sound and unwittingly entice him to stay. He took care to close the door softly behind him, though judging by Antonio’s snores that care was unnecessary.

 _Enough_ , he told himself sternly. Letting the man kiss him was one thing ( _as was kissing him back_ , a traitorous voice in the back of his head whispered)—wanting to crawl into bed with him was quite another. A growing spot of damp in the front of his trousers made it clear his dick wasn’t listening. Sebastian groaned through his teeth.

He made his way to the back of the ship, to a dark corner by the head, and glanced around to make sure no one was near. Only then did he let himself reach for the ties of his trews.

Relief coursed through him as he fisted his cock, followed hotly by hunger, and he clenched his teeth tight against the moan that threatened. He worked his hand in a practiced fashion, the growing slickness easing the way. Closing his eyes, he let himself imagine—just for this moment, surely a moment’s thought was not enough to consign him to the flames—someone else touching him, wrapping a hand around his. As his hand sped, the person gained details: skin-warm gold rings adding weight and texture to the rhythm of their strokes, a ruffled shirt, dark eyes dancing with mirth and desire.

Sebastian tightened his grip as the Antonio of his mind dropped to his knees, dark eyes never leaving his, and swallowed Sebastian down, engulfing him in a tight, slick heat. Sebastian gasped and let his head loll as he spurted his release, stroking himself through it and biting back a rough groan of pleasure. The world faded around him for a bit, and he reached his free hand out for the rail to steady his suddenly wobbly legs.

Gradually the world settled again (as much as it could on the heave of the open sea, at any rate), and he found himself staring at his hand, mind scrambling. He couldn’t deny that this was not a normal wank, fueled by an acceptable fantasy.

A shout of laughter reminded him where he was, and he cleaned up quickly, tucking himself back in and doing up the ties. Blowing out a breath, he braced himself and returned to the lamp-lit circle of his carousing shipmates; he shouldered through the crowd toward the bunks, waving off invitations to rejoin the party by pleading exhaustion.

Snoring bodies in various states of undress already occupied a few of the hammocks by the time he got there. Sebastian shucked his boots and belt and climbed into his own hammock. He stared unseeingly at the darkness.

This was nothing new: Sebastian had known since he was young that he could love a man equally to a woman. But aside from a couple of furtive exchanges of hands behind the stables and one thoroughly aborted cock-suck (his mind automatically shied away from the memory) in his youth, he had no opportunities—or choice, really—to pursue anything but marriage to a suitable noblewoman.

 _Now, though_ , that traitorous voice whispered, _now you have time, opportunity, and the safety of a false identity. Now there is no raging father throwing pottery, no priest frowning through the carved rosewood screen, no taunts or threats you have to laugh off. Sebastian has expectations of rank, duty dogging at his heels; Sebastian may not have Antonio, true—but Roderigo might._

And there was something about Antonio, Sebastian admitted to himself, here in the privacy of his own thoughts, hidden in the darkness—the shape of his hands, the quirk of his mouth, the intricacies of his hidden past that drew sharp lines on his young face—that endlessly fascinated Sebastian. He wondered at the sides to Antonio: the words that could cut or soothe, the hands equally capable of killing and repair of his beloved ship. Sebastian wanted to know everything: what had happened in Venice, what had driven Antonio to piracy, what he had against nobles.

As he stared at the gloom, the face of the disapproving Father Matteo formed in his mind’s eye. Lectures about unnaturalness, about sin and hellfire, poured from his mouth, alternating between his own voice and that of Sebastian’s father. “Your soul is in danger if you pursue these thoughts!” they thundered in his head.

Sebastian rolled over and buried his face in the rough fabric of his hammock, breathing in the scent of sweat and sleep, trying to block out the voices that were so heavily rooted in him.

 _I can’t_ , he decided finally, the condemnations too loud, doubts of his own springing up in their wake. He couldn’t risk it—any of it. Antonio might have shown him softer sides, but he still had the power of life and death over Sebastian whilst he was on the _Destiny_ , and his grudge against nobles was not likely something so easily dropped. Besides, he had been drunk tonight. He had probably been high on excitement and the relish of life and had gotten carried away. He probably wouldn’t even remember it in the morning, and Sebastian _would not bring it up_ , he told himself sternly. It would be like it never happened.

He shifted away from the dampness soaking the fabric near his eyes that he told himself wasn’t there and let the rocking of the ship lull him to sleep.

 

*

 

“You do it!”

“No, you!”

“I went last time! Y’wanna see the scar?”

“Don’t be such a coward.”

“I would rather be a coward than dead.”

“He wouldn’t kill you…would he?”

Sebastian cracked an eye open at the silence. Bickering he could sleep through, but tense silence proved impossible to ignore. He swung his way out of his hammock, groaning, and stumbled out to the knot of men huddled outside the mess. His head pounded in time with his heart, and he winced at the bright sunlight.

“Ah, Roderigo!” Pietro said. He came over and threw a companionable arm around Sebastian’s shoulders, steering him toward the rest. “Perfect! You can take the captain his breakfast!”

“Pietro, don’t throw the poor lad to the sharks,” Erasmo said under his breath.

“Not without knowing what he’s getting into, anyway,” Marco said. He turned to Sebastian. “The captain tends to be—how shall I put this— _cranky_ after a night of heavy drinking.”

“Violently so,” someone muttered.

“But Roderigo is perfect for the job!” Pietro said. “The captain has a soft spot for him.”

“Or rather, a hard one, eh?” Marco said, elbowing Sebastian and grinning. Sebastian flushed and forced a laugh.

“Go on,” Pietro said, pushing a tray into Sebastian’s hands and turning him to Antonio’s door. He knocked, opened the door, and pushed Sebastian inside before Sebastian could protest. Sebastian directed a scowl over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.

“Go away!” came a muffled attempt at a shout from the bed. Sebastian put the tray on the table that was bolted to the floor, stalked deliberately over to the porthole, and flung the shutter open.

There was a girlish shriek behind him, and Sebastian allowed himself a smile as he turned.

“Good morning, sir!” he said cheerfully. His own head renewed its throbbing at the intrusion of light, but he was still (apparently) a sight better than their fearless captain. He squinted out the porthole. “Er…midday, rather.”

“Away and let me die!” Antonio moaned.

Sebastian grinned. “Do you really want to leave the _Destiny_ in Pietro’s hands? Or Marco’s?”

Antonio groaned loudly in response and hauled himself into a sitting position with a heroic effort. He clutched his head.

“Damn you and damn Pietro, too,” he muttered with no real heat. “If he thinks just because he sends me a pretty face, I’ll go easy on them, he has a lot to learn.”

Sebastian felt heat rising to his face and turned back to the tray to hide it. Antonio thought he was pretty?

Antonio scrubbed his face with his hands and gazed blearily at Sebastian through his fingers. “What happened last night? Did I kiss anyone?”

Sebastian fumbled the cup he was trying to pour water into so badly he knocked it over. He bent to retrieve it as calmly as he could. When he risked a look over his shoulder at Antonio, he found Antonio had dropped his hands and was staring at Sebastian’s bent form. Sebastian straightened, and Antonio quickly looked away.

“Does that often happen when you drink?” Sebastian said, hoping his voice sounded as casual as he meant it to.

“Sometimes,” Antonio said enigmatically. He looked at Sebastian with an expression Sebastian couldn’t read. “Did I?”

“Not that I noticed,” Sebastian said lightly, something in his chest clenching and a hard knot forming in his stomach. He turned back to the tray, willing himself to breathe evenly.

“Ah,” Antonio said softly from behind him. Something in his voice made Sebastian turn back. Antonio’s gaze was curiously clear for someone with as bad of a hangover as he doubtless had. His eyes never left Sebastian’s as he said, “Perhaps next time.”

Sebastian ducked his head against the return of the flush of heat to his cheeks and viciously pushed down the thought that meant what he thought it did.


	4. Act I, Scene 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: panic attack (and anachronistic treatment of the same), discussion of panic attacks and PTSD, alcohol as a coping mechanism

He had little time to think too hard about it, in the rush of never-ending tasks aboard the ship. If he was not swabbing the deck or scraping salt accumulations from various surfaces, he was helping a chortling Marco attempt to turn out something edible or was aloft, checking ropes and billowing sails under the blazing sun. If his heart jolted or his stomach dropped whenever he caught sight of Antonio, inclining his head to listen gravely to a crewmember or cheerfully cursing pretty much anything in sight, well, perhaps Sebastian had simply not gotten his sea legs yet.

He surely was not as finely tuned to the rush and swell of the sea as any of the salt-blooded sailors, so the full import of the gathering clouds scudding across the horizon did not register until the sun seemed to dim. Sebastian looked up. Now that he thought about it, the wind had been blowing more harshly this last hour or more, whistling through the rigging and plucking at clothing. As if his thought had conjured it, another gust blew over the ship, clouting him not-so-gently in the face and running ghostly hands over and through his clothes. Sebastian shivered.

“Coming up on the squall, cap’n!” Pietro called from the fo’deck.

“No shit, Pietro!” Antonio called back, making his way to the tiller, jovial as ever. Sebastian tried to look at him, tried to track those broad shoulders and draw reassurance from the fact that Antonio did not appear concerned, but he was rooted in place, staring sightlessly at the roiling mass of dark clouds ahead of the bow.

“Boys, you should know this by now! Haul in the sails, secure the cannons—why do I need to tell you how to do your jobs again?” Antonio bellowed from the wheel. The sea was beginning to match the wind now, stirring choppily and showing peaks of cresting foam here and there. The sailors swarmed over the deck in a swirl of movement and noise. Still Sebastian could not will his frozen limbs to move. His eyes stayed locked on the storm, which was beginning to flash with lightning in the darker swirls of clouds.

“Roderigo? What are you doing? Get to work!” The call seemed to come from very far away. His stomach was twisting itself in knots, his heartbeat beginning to drum in his ears. They were headed straight for it; there was no way they could outrun it, not now.

They were heading straight for it.

Sebastian remembered suddenly, with sickening clarity, exactly how a ship sounded when it split apart.

The wind seemed to be tugging at his sleeves more frequently now, babble rising around him. His stomach pitched deeper than the deck did. Rain began to patter on the deck, and Sebastian flinched violently at the cold tap of drops on his exposed skin.

 _Water_.

“Pietro?!”

“He’s not listening, sir!”

Sebastian wondered vaguely if some of the increased shouting over the last few minutes had been directed at him. He couldn’t remember how to fathom words. A living sharpness he refused to name as terror squirmed quicksilver-quick through his veins, stole sensation from his extremities, made his heart pound and echo in his chest and head. The edges of his vision were starting to flicker and blur. They were headed straight for it, the billow of clouds, the ship-killer of a storm, they were going to wreck, everyone was going to die, _everyone was going to die_.

“Pietro, take the wheel. The rest of you lot, to your places.” The slightly breathless voice cut through the unending frenetic chant that was all his head could hold. It was familiar, if oddly tight, and came from much closer at hand than it had a moment ago. “Roderigo?”

He couldn’t breathe, he _couldn’t_ _breathe_.

“Roderigo, come here.” The voice was achingly gentle, as soft as possible with the storm roaring around them.

The waves would grow, soon, would heave and rend the ship to flinders.

The wind was gently pushing at him with oddly warm pressure at various places, but his limbs were still refusing to cooperate. There was a huff in his ear.

“Fine. Will you at least sit?” The warmth was at his knees now, coaxing them to unlock. They resisted right until they didn’t, and Sebastian collapsed where he was. He should feel jarred, he knew, should feel the pain of bumped bones and muscle, but it was all so very far away. An uneven wall of color situated itself between him and the rear of purple-black clouds.

“Roderigo, look at me.”

 _They were all going to die_ , could they not smell the sharp, bitter stench of it on the air, it was death come back to claim him, to punish him for slipping its claws the last time…

“Breathe with me.” Warmth enveloped one of his hands, placed it on a slab of firmer warmth that moved up and down in even intervals. “Come, now, Roderigo, breathe with me.”

At least he would be with Viola.

“Roderigo, damn your eyes, fucking _breathe_.” The warmth covering his hand clutched tighter, molding his hand to the contours of the firm muscle it rested on. “Come on, Roderigo. Look at me. Talk to me. _Do_ something!”

“We’re all going to die,” Sebastian whispered, letting the words trickle from the all-consuming chant in his mind down through his numb lips. His voice seemed to come from that same faraway place where everything else was happening. The warmth over his hand clenched again.

“We are not going to die, Roderigo,” the voice said firmly. “Breathe with me, now.”

He took a wavering, hitching breath, only then realizing that he had been panting shallowly for the last however-long. The warmth under his hand rose and fell rhythmically, and his lungs tried in vain to match the even tempo. “It’s a ship-killer, there’s no way we can outrun it…”

His ears filled again with screams seared into his memory, with great cracks as wood splintered and creaking groans as metal bent, thunder a crashing counterpart to it all.

“Roderigo. Roderigo, look at me.” A hand cupped his face, shocking warmth against its clammy pallor, and Sebastian startled. The noise receded to rain and shouted instructions. “It is not a ship-killer. Look, see? The clouds are just dark, no green to them. It’s a squall, that’s all.”

“You were lashing yourself to the tiller,” Sebastian said, still faraway. Apparently his mind took note of things that he hadn’t been able to focus on. He realized distantly that he was shaking, vibrating against the strong hands that held him fast.

“That’s a precaution. I do it for any storm we pass through, after—well, never mind that. Roderigo. It’s fine. It’s not—” the voice, a bastion in this haze Sebastian was trapped in, hesitated. “It’s not like last time.”

The wet trickling down Sebastian’s face was warm now. “I can’t lose her again,” he choked out, dull and sharp and forlorn. It didn’t make any sense, but not much was making sense right now.

“You won’t. Roderigo. Roderigo, come back to me now.” A thumb stroked along his cheekbone, chasing away the chill and what could only be tears alike.

Sebastian heaved another shuddering breath, closed his eyes for the space of a breath and then opened them. His vision cleared a bit. “Antonio?”

“The one and only.” Belatedly, Sebastian realized that he should have called Antonio “Captain,” but some of the tightness was easing from the corners of Antonio’s eyes, so surely it was not so very terrible. His dark eyes were as steady and unreadable as ever, and Sebastian clung to them with his own like he was already drowning again. “Breathe with me now.”

Antonio’s chest continued its even rise and fall, a comforting counterpoint to the pitch and swell of the deck beneath them. His heart beat sure and strong beneath Sebastian’s frozen fingertips.

Sebastian blinked again, shook a drop of water off his nose. His breathing was evening out, the high-pitched gasps giving way to actual breath. His fingers and toes fizzed and burned with returning sensation.

“Are you back with us?”

“Back—“ Sebastian looked up to where Antonio was crouching before him, his face a tight mask of worry. For a split second, he wondered, with an all-consuming flush of shame, what this must look like: the captain, responsible for everything and everyone on the ship, leaving his post to crouch in the middle of the deck with the new sailor who was losing his shit over nothing. What an image they must make, a drenched, motionless pair in the middle of the swirl of movement. Then his eyes moved involuntarily to the dark clouds straight above them, the tall waves over the bow, and his stomach twisted. He scrambled for the railing, where he miserably upheaved what felt like every meal he had ever consumed.

A warm hand—how was Antonio always so warm, a corner of his mind wondered—settled on his back, fingers splayed wide over his ribs.

“Roderigo,” Antonio said, lips brushing Sebastian’s ear. Sebastian shivered (but that was the cold and the adrenaline, of course it was). “Watch for a bit, if you can; see with your own eyes that it’s only a squall. We’re going to be fine, I promise you. When you’re ready, head belowdecks. We don’t need you up here.”

Sebastian lifted his head, misery and humiliation warring in his chest. “But—“

The ship rode the lee of another wave, and Sebastian clutched the rail. Antonio merely set his feet and raised an eyebrow at Sebastian meaningfully.

“All right,” he muttered sullenly.

“All right,” Antonio echoed. His hand moved up to squeeze Sebastian’s shoulder, and Sebastian was immediately, inescapably reminded of the last time they had been this close, the last time Antonio had squeezed his shoulder and looked at him with _that look_ in his dark brown eyes.

“Captain! I could use you over here!”

“Be right there,” Antonio called back to Pietro. Softly, so softly Sebastian wondered for a moment if he had imagined it, Antonio brushed a knuckle across Sebastian’s cheek before turning and making his way to the wheel.

 

*

 

It wasn’t a ship-killer. Sebastian could see, now, with his head and eyes clear, that Antonio was right, that the clouds did not have the dangerous green edge to them, that the waves were tall but not swallowing. Waves splattered and crashed across the ship, but the deck held.

The deck held.

“All right, nonessentials, time to get below,” Antonio roared from where he had reclaimed the tiller. Pietro was finishing the knots that lashed his captain to his post.

“Who’re you calling nonessential?” someone called back, his cheer a sharp contrast to the stale fear still curdling in Sebastian’s belly.

“Everyone who is not me, Paolo, or a messenger, get off my deck,” Antonio returned, smiling but with an edge to his voice. Sebastian swore he felt, for a moment, the weight of Antonio’s dark eyes on him. Then Antonio’s words sank in, and Sebastian glanced aloft, eyes shying instinctively away from the darkest swirls of clouds. Rain spattered against his upturned face as he, squinting, managed to make out a hunched form that could only be Paolo, no doubt similarly lashed to the crow’s nest. Another sailor—Sebastian couldn’t tell who it was at this distance—was tying himself to a crossbar roughly halfway between the crow’s nest and the wheel, where he could shout instructions back and forth. A knot undid itself in Sebastian’s back: they would not be running aground or into rocks even in a storm, not if Paolo could help it. The man had uncanny eyesight.

A hand that Sebastian’s mind automatically registered as slightly smaller than Antonio’s rested on Sebastian’s shoulder, radiating warmth through his thin, drenched shirt to the chilled skin below.

“Come below, Roderigo,” Pietro said gently. His eyes, unlike Antonio’s, were scanning the ship instead of focusing on Sebastian’s face, which oddly made it easier to respond.

“Shouldn’t you stay on deck?” Sebastian said, trying to delay the inevitable. He did not want to be belowdecks; that’s where he would be caught by surprise by the ship’s destruction. If he stayed up here, nothing would happen. That was pure logic.

“Nah, the captain needs me to keep his bored crew from killing each other, and he needs the crew below to stay out of the waves and keep the loot from sliding around. Come now, he will have my balls if you get washed overboard because you were too stubborn to obey his order. You don’t want to deny the world a brood of little Pietros, do you?” Pietro pulled gently but inexorably at the shoulder he held. Sebastian briefly entertained the idea of digging his heels into the deck and refusing to move, but he had already looked ridiculous enough today. He sighed instead and pried his hands loose from where he was clutching the railing in a white-knuckled grip still.

“As if you could find a willing woman,” Sebastian retorted by rote, the effect mangled by the way his teeth started chattering halfway through the sentence. Pietro smiled slightly.

“It’s all right,” Pietro said, towing Sebastian in his wake, still cheerful despite the driving rain that was turning needle-sharp in their faces. “We always break out the grog for times like these.”

Bored pirates with nothing to do but drink and a storm roaring over their heads. Great. This was going to go well.

*

 

Afterward—after Sebastian spent more hours than he had ever wanted crammed into the hold with crewmates that seemed much more numerous when they were not on rotating shifts, after the whole crew got stinking drunk and roared out off-key songs loud enough to drown out the sound of waves and rain, after at least three crewmembers looked askance at Sebastian’s pale face before shoving another cup of grog in his hand, after the creaking that made Sebastian jump quieted and the rocking of the ship lulled enough for him to, against all odds, fall asleep, drooling onto Julio’s shoulder, after Pietro opened the hatch and announced they could resume their duties, after Sebastian emerged into the sunlight like Christ reborn from the cave—Sebastian made his way to the stern, to stare at the receding bank of clouds.

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when, some amount of time later—Sebastian knew not how long—Antonio settled next to him. They sat in companionable silence for a bit, Sebastian taking swigs from the bottle he had snagged on his way aft and idly kicking his legs that hung freely over the side of the _Destiny_ ’s aft.

“I thought I’d feel relieved,” Sebastian said abruptly. “When we got out, when I saw we had made it—I thought it would hit me, all of a sudden.”

“As suddenly and intensely as the panic, eh?” Antonio said softly from beside him.

“Aye. I thought…” Sebastian scrubbed at his face with his free hand and resolutely did not look at Antonio. “I thought it would be over. I’d be cured, or something.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Antonio said in that same soft voice.

“I know that!” Sebastian banged his hand against the deck and lowered his voice from a shout. “I know. I just—hoped, I suppose.”

They sat for a bit longer, and Sebastian took another drink. He had never gotten sober, after the storm, and he could feel drunken despair threatening. The sun shone clear and bright, and the frisky breeze seemed to mock Sebastian. See, it seemed to say, how could there have been anything to worry about if this is on the other side? How you miscalculated!

Sebastian leaned his head against the rail support he was straddling. “I feel so—“

“Don’t,” Antonio said quickly. “Don’t—everyone here has some shades from their past. You’re not the first to get lost in their dark depths, and you certainly won’t be the last.”

“Aye, because freezing at the sight of some clouds and rain is common amongst pirates,” Sebastian said bitterly.

Antonio was silent for a long moment.

“I was in a terrible tempest, once,” he said, and something in his tone made Sebastian turn toward him. There was a hesitancy there that was unlike Antonio. It was Antonio’s turn to stare unseeing at the distant curl of clouds. “Worst I’d ever seen—I still have never seen the like. The ship wrecked, completely demolished. For a while I thought I and a few compatriots were the only survivors.”

Sebastian’s chest ached in recognition. “What happened?” he said.

Antonio shrugged, his shoulder moving against Sebastian’s with a whisper of cloth. “It turned out everyone was fine. We got back on board the—another ship,” he said. “But the next storm we hit, I…” he hesitated, “I pissed myself.”

“No.”

“Aye. The clouds came in and the rain started, and all I saw and all I knew was that it was another tempest come to strike us down. I was convinced that Pros—that someone had changed his mind, that I was not to live after all. When I came to, well.” He spread his hands in a gesture of defeat and let them drop.

Sebastian faced Antonio more fully now, saw the lines pulling at his face again. “I survived, obviously. But for the next six months, anything harder than a drizzle made my heart race like jackrabbit’s. So you see, you have a leg up on me.”

Sebastian decided it was time to lighten the mood. “Wouldn’t you be the one with your leg up?” he joked. Antonio frowned for a moment, but then his face cleared into a smile and he gave Sebastian a friendly shove.

“See if I ever pour my heart out to you again,” he said, offhand. He got to his feet and held out his hand. “Ready to get back to work?”

Sebastian didn’t answer, instead staring at the angry red welt that spanned Antonio’s wrist. Before he knew what was happening, he was cupping Antonio’s wrist gently.

“What happened?” he demanded, fingers feather-light on the abrasion. The sun must have been very bright, because it looked like Antonio flushed a bit.

“I tied myself to the tiller, remember? It’ll heal in a few days.”

“Why?” Sebastian said, looking up just in time to see Antonio’s face close down, sad.

“A story for another time. Here, give me that bottle, it’s wasted on you anyway.” Sebastian obediently passed over the bottle and let Antonio haul him to his feet. He let go too late, though, and stumbled close to Antonio’s body, their chests a hairs-breadth apart, his breath mingling with Antonio’s surprised huff of air.

“You know what you said, before, about what happens when you drink?” Sebastian said because it seemed like a good idea.

Antonio seemed hypnotized by his eyes, looking into them searchingly before dipping his gaze down to his mouth. “Aye,” he said, hoarse.

“It doesn’t happen to me,” Sebastian said decidedly, and lurched away to find his bunk.


	5. Act II, Scene 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: explicit and implicit anti-Semitism (because Merchant of Venice), angst, brief allusion to suicide attempt by a tertiary character, ALL of the Shakespeare references, the term "whore" to denote a sex worker, prostitutes and prostitution, sad sex with a professional, last bit is NSFW

It took them a week to sail to the nearest friendly port. For Sebastian, it was an agonizing week of odd tension between him and Antonio. Often he would look up and find Antonio’s dark, unreadable eyes resting on him from across the deck, studying him. Other times, Sebastian would let his eyes linger for too long on some part of Antonio, and Antonio would turn and catch his gaze. Sebastian would immediately look away, blushing more often than not, trying to ignore the thumping of his heart.

The night before they put into port, they divided up Angelo’s gold.

“Be careful with this,” Antonio warned as they cackled over their loot. “A man wouldn’t hesitate to gut you for this much wealth.”

“Or a woman!” someone yelled to a chorus of guffaws and, after a moment, subdued general agreement. Pietro stood up next to Antonio.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put most if not all of it into a bank,” he said. “I know a Jew here, Abraham, that can be trusted. He’s a good moneylender, honest and fair. Anyone who wants to join me can.”

It was only because Sebastian had again found his gaze wandering and latching onto Antonio that he caught the pained twitch of his shoulders, the clenching of his jaw, the settling of some old darkness, at something Pietro said.

“But don’t forget to celebrate our good fortune, eh, boys?” Antonio added, but the cheer in his voice sounded strained to Sebastian. Antonio’s eyes darted over to Sebastian, and Sebastian followed his pattern of dropping his eyes and feeling warmth flood his cheeks.

“While it lasts!” the crew chorused back, Sebastian a beat behind the rest.

Most of the crew gloated over their share of the gold, beginning another party on deck, but Antonio vanished into his cabin—to brood, Sebastian thought uncharitably—and Sebastian didn’t see him again until the put into port the next afternoon. 

 

* 

 

It was a beautiful clear day when they put into port. Sebastian was caught up in the whirlwind of the carefully organized chaos of preparation as land loomed on the horizon for the first time in a month.

Once everything was tied down, the crew dispersed—some to their bunk to collect belongings, others roaming the deck restlessly. Sebastian made his way to the rail and gazed at the mass of land, his stomach roiling with all the emotions he had kept at bay this time on the sea.

With the endless chaos of life on the ship and the confusion of…whatever was happening with Antonio, Sebastian had barely had a chance—hadn’t _let_ himself have a chance—to think about what he had lost. Now, away from the freedom and odd sense of suspended time on the open sea, everything began to press down upon him once more: his lies about his identity, his responsibilities as heir to his father’s holdings…

Viola.

'Sbones, _Viola_. How the mere sight of land carved the hole of her loss deep in his gut, he knew not, but he pressed a hand to the phantom wound nonetheless, tears springing to his eyes. Viola, O Viola. He cursed Fortune beneath his breath, tears running down his face but bringing no relief.

“Land ho!” “Twenty minutes!” rang out from the crow’s nest, and Sebastian startled, swiping at his face, ruthlessly pushing his grief aside. Time enough for that later, when he was alone. The last thing he needed was for a crew of pirates to see him blubbering at the sight of land, regardless of whatever that sight brought forth.

He spared a moment to wonder why Antonio had not emerged from his cabin to see the end of the horizon with the rest of them.

 

*

 

The crew scattered as soon as they could. Sebastian followed Pietro and deposited the majority of his gold with Abraham, an older man with shrewd but kind eyes. Children ran about and played in the fountain of the courtyard that Abraham ushered them through. Pietro closed the door behind them and crossed his arms, an indulgent smile on his face, as Abraham explained his network and showed Sebastian his credentials. Sebastian carefully tucked away the letter of deposit he received in exchange for the gold and watch as Abraham locked the gold away in a heavy chest of dark wood and tucked the key back around his neck.

“Always ensure your moneylender has credentials before you show them anything,” Abraham advised, walking them back out into the courtyard. “Else they may be masquerading as one, and simply kill you and steal your letter.”

Pietro frowned. “Desperation drives men to do dangerous things.”

Abraham shook his head sorrowfully. “Indeed. Just the other day, I had someone accuse me of charging a pound of flesh against a loan.”

Sebastian blinked. “A pound of what kind of flesh?”

Abraham regarded him calmly. “Human.” He shook his head again and spat in the dust to ward off the evil eye. “I must admit, among all of the things I have been called, a dealer in human flesh is the first.”

Pietro started, unwillingly, “I had heard, from Venice…”

“Rumors spread faster than the wind, ahead of the truth,” Abraham said. “Nor I nor any of my brethren would ever do such a thing. We are ourselves human, are we not? If you cut us, do we not bleed?”

It was Pietro’s turn to shake his head, but he did it with a smile. “If it’s all the same to you, sirrah, I would rather not test that.”

Abraham returned the smile. “I thank thee for that.” He shook hands with Pietro and Sebastian and ushered them out, trailing children in their wake.

 

*

 

Antonio met them outside, unfolding himself from his deceptively casual stance slouched against a nearby storefront, sharp eyes tracking anyone who came near. As Abraham closed the door behind them, Antonio adjusted the cloth cap he had somehow acquired and winked at them, but something still tugged his mouth down.

“How did it go?” he said, scanning them and then the area. Sebastian would have teased him for his jumpiness had Pietro not mirrored the wariness.

“It went fine,” Pietro said. “I still think-“

“I made arrangements with my own banker,” Antonio cut him off. “A Christian,” he added pointedly.

Pietro’s lips thinned, but he said nothing.

Antonio took a step closer to Sebastian. “You all right?” he said quietly, eyes flicking up and down Sebastian as though looking for some wound.

Sebastian nodded, confused.

Antonio motioned him closer, turning so his back was to the street. Pietro moved in what looked an automatic motion to flank him, taking over the job of scanning the street.

Antonio drew a gold hoop out of the pouch at his hip into the shadow between their bodies. It was (to Sebastian’s untrained eye) a twin to the one looped through Antonio’s right ear.

“I kept this back,” Antonio said, the “for you” going unsaid but making Sebastian’s heart skip a beat nonetheless. “I thought it was time to make your place on the _Destiny_ official.”

Sebastian stared at the hoop, then back up at Antonio, whose face was somehow both guarded and vulnerable, eyes soft.

“So what do you say?” Antonio asked, voice soft but casual, the inflection in his words anything but. The last word quavered a bit, betraying the nerves behind the question. Sebastian would have snorted had the moment not been so serious; how could there be any other answer?

“Aye,” Sebastian said, covering Antonio’s hand with his own, and watched Antonio’s face do something complicated around a broad grin. Something loosened and tightened in Sebastian all at once.

“Good,” Antonio said simply, though his face said a thousand words more. He withdrew his hand, leaving the earring in Sebastian’s, and clapped hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “I know a jeweler near here—shall we?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, knowing he was agreeing to more than just the earring and feeling all the lighter for it. Pietro pounded his back as Antonio took his elbow and steered him through the busy throng.

 

*

 

The new piercing in his ear throbbed, and Sebastian took another gulp of ale to try to quiet it. The tavern was full of unfamiliar sounds and smells; though he had only been at sea for a month, his rank had prevented him from going anywhere near establishments like the _The Spear Shaker_  before (not publicly, anyway; but he had always been jumpy when he had snuck out, disguised, to _The Fool’s Cap_ and had often left after one tankard and a prostitute or two). The close, garlicky smell of people’s bodies reminded him of the time the _Destiny_ went through the squall and he had huddled with his shipmates in the hold—he moved quickly away from that memory, still so fresh it stung—but without the briny undertone from the sea spray. Scents of stale beer and urine lurked mustily among the rushes on the floor, and the roast in the fireplace spat out mouth-watering crackles of fat and juices. Whores plied their trade liberally, marked by the traditional white face powder and rogue, breasts bubbling up from their corsets. If Sebastian had thought the revelry on the _Destiny_ loud and chaotic, he was disabused of the notion now; he could barely hear Julio shouting cheerfully into his ear.

The door swung open, and Antonio walked in, shadowed by Pietro. He looked around for his crew and, meeting their eyes, tilted his head meaningfully. Julio gripped his tankard and slid off his stool; looking around, Sebastian could see the other crewmembers of the _Destiny_ doing the same. Antonio strode purposefully toward a shadowed nook at the back of the room as if he owned the place—indeed, he could, for all Sebastian knew. Pietro stayed at his elbow, one hand on the hilt of his dagger, eyes missing nothing.

It took a fair bit of jostling, spilled ale, and good-natured swearing to fit everyone around the table. Antonio sat in the center, Pietro to his right and Sebastian to his left (Sebastian was not thinking about the warmth of Antonio pressed up all against his side, he _was not_ ), holding court like a lord or a king. He spread his hands. “What news?”

This was apparently a long-standing tradition because Lorenzo jumped right in. “The king of England’s dead.”

There was a chorus of guffaws and a general lack of surprise.

“I’m shocked,” Paolo said in a voice laden with irony, reaching for the pitcher to top off his tankard.

“Which one was this? It’s so hard to keep track,” Julio chimed in. The crew laughed, and Julio took a swig of his ale, looking pleased with himself.

“A Henry, a Richard, or an Edward, take your pick,” Pietro said dismissively. “What else?”

Nigel steepled his fingers. “Everyone’s buzzing about the Moor,” he rumbled, and everyone leaned in. For such a big man, he was surprisingly quiet. He had told Sebastian he originally hailed from Tunis and was tight-lipped about himself beyond that. “The duke sent him to Cyprus fight off the rumored Turkish fleet.”

“Wonder where he got that idea,” Marco muttered sardonically into his beer, still smarting from Angelo’s attitude these weeks after. Paolo elbowed him into silence.

“The first wave of the Turkish fleet was wrecked in a storm,” Nigel continued. “Likely the same one you came from,” he said to Sebastian, and Sebastian stared resolutely into his mug, “before he even got to Cyprus. He’s staying there, though, in case there’s another fleet.”

“There may yet be one,” Julio said. “I heard the duke of Ephesus is readying a flotilla headed by his son Antipholus.”

“Which one?” someone Sebastian couldn’t see asked. He turned to make a questioning face at Julio.

“There’s two of them; one from Ephesus, and one from Syracuse,” Julio explained. “Caused a bit of a mess when they found out; long-lost identical twins, can you believe it?”

“I still don’t; what are the odds?” someone said as Sebastian's chest contracted. He took another long drink of ale to cover up his reaction, and he put down his mug to find Antonio’s eyes on him. He shrugged a shoulder, unsure of both the question and the answer, and Antonio dropped his eyes and took a drink.

“Wonder how the Moor will fare against an Antipholus,” Nigel mused. “What with his Dromio watching his back.”

Antonio laughed, a dry sound devoid of all humor. “He won’t have a chance,” he said. “Surrounded by bored Venetians? Mark my words, he’ll be betrayed and dead before the Turks can even get close again. I’ll put money on it.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Marco said. “Who would stab the Moor in the back? You would have to be insane.”

The shadows that usually hid at Antonio’s edges were written all over his face now. “Have you _met_ a Venetian?” he tried to joke. “There’s no intrigue like Venetian intrigue. Twelve ducats?”

“Done,” Marco said, and the men spat in their palms and shook on it.

“I’m not sure there should be betting on a man’s death,” Erasmo remarked.

Marco rolled his eyes. “We’re not betting on the _when_ , we’re betting on the _how_ ,” he said. “We’re all going to die at some point, might as well make some money off of it.”

“Hear, hear!” Sebastian said, raising his mug. His crewmates raised theirs to clink them together in an impromptu toast.

“What about you, old man?” Lorenzo said, elbowing Erasmo lightly. “What have you heard?”

Erasmo sighed. “Well, I was talking to an apothecary acquaintance of mine, and he said that he had heard from—“

A loud chorus of protests cut him off.

“You know the rules, sirrah,” Pietro said after a meaningful look at Antonio had only netted him a sigh and a gesture to go ahead. “Tell the story, not the circumstances by which you got the story. It cuts down on the my-cousin’s-lover-heard-from-the-fish-seller-whose-brother-heard-a-whisper-from-his-aunt’s-friend’s-roommate’s-father that,” he added to Sebastian.

“Fine, you louts,” Erasmo said with dignity. “If you care not whether the story came from a reliable source, I suppose that is no concern of mine.”

“Get on with it!” someone yelled from the other end of the table.

“A tragedy, really,” Erasmo said, shaking his head. “A misunderstanding by which my friend’s friend was so wracked with guilt that he tried to take his own life.”

“When and where, Erasmo?” Antonio said patiently, tapping his fingers on the table.

“Verona,” Erasmo said. “The feud is ended in blood; blood, and the tolling of a bell.” He took a swig and muttered, “As too many are.”

“Well, it’s blood or marriage, and there was too much blood for it to be solved with marriage,” said Antonio, apparently having already heard this story—hell, maybe he had heard all of the stories already. His eyes were sad.

There were a few pleased murmurs among the crew. “Well, at least now we won’t get drafted into fighting for either those blasted Capatets or Montaganes,” Pietro said, apparently summing up the general feeling.

“Capulets and Montagues.”

“Whatever.”

Sebastian had perked up a bit at the mention of Verona; at one point, Juliet Capulet was being considered as a match for him.

“What happened?” he said, morbidly curious.

There was a beat of silence where everyone tried hard not to meet each other’s eyes.

“They fell in love,” Antonio said, taking a long draught from his mug. Sebastian stared, transfixed by his bobbing Adam’s apple and the glisten on his lips before Antonio wiped it off with his hand. “Idiot thing to do.”

The bottom fell out of Sebastian’s stomach, and he wrenched his gaze away. “Oh, aye,” he heard himself say at a distance. “Idiotic.”

“Ah, now, Roderigo,” Antonio said quickly. “I didn’t mean--I meant for nobles, like them! Foolish thing to do, mixing love and politics.”

“Just look at Antony and Cleopatra,” someone muttered.

Antonio flung an arm around Sebastian’s shoulder. “Now we, my friend,” he said. “We are the common people: we can love whoever we want, whenever we want.” There was a lilt to his words, some meaning Sebastian couldn’t parse. Just as a warm, cautious hope bloomed in the pit of Sebastian’s stomach, Antonio’s eyes tracked a pair of prostitutes who had stopped outside their huddle and were posing provocatively. Antonio whistled under his breath. “And right now,” he said, getting up and adjusting his belt, “I think I’m in love with them.”

“As they are with anyone with a full purse,” Julio muttered into his tankard. Marco looked oddly displeased, his brows drawn together and an unhappy purse to his mouth, as he watched their captain saunter over to the women. Antonio murmured something in the ear of one of them, and the woman giggled. Sebastian kept his eyes carefully on the distorted surface of his ale, the hope ashen and cold in his stomach, pressure building in his throat.

“All right, seems like that’s it, then, lads,” Pietro said, slapping his hands on the table and rising. “Have fun, sow some oats, but be on the ship checking your assigned area by early afternoon; I want us ready to ship out by the end of the week. You’re for the armory,” he added more quietly to Sebastian as the rest of the crew murmured assent and began to disperse. “Checking blades for rust, what can be repaired and what needs to be replaced, that sort of thing. You up for it?”

Sebastian swallowed hard to dissipate the lump in his throat. “Of course,” he said, trying for bravado and failing as his face fell at another peal of feminine laughter.

A hand settled, warm, on his shoulder, and Sebastian looked into Pietro’s kind eyes. “You’ll be all right,” he said, giving Sebastian’s shoulder a little shake, as if daring him to be otherwise. “The captain sometimes has to be stupid for a bit before he realizes what the smart move is.”

“That seems dangerous,” Sebastian’s mouth said without permission. Pietro sighed, exasperated and fond at once.

“It is,” he said. Sebastian finally gave into the temptation to look, and they watched as Antonio escorted both the women upstairs, laughing. Sebastian felt strangely shattered.

Pietro shook him again. “Come, now, Roderigo,” he said. “You are young and have money to spare. Now is not the time to deny yourself. Go find some fun.” He gently pushed Sebastian toward the thick of the crowd in the tavern.

“Aye, all right,” Sebastian said, scrubbing at the stinging in his eyes—it was smoky in there, of course it was the smoke. He lied, “I will do my best.”

That seemed to be all that was needed to wipe the concerned, all-too-perceptive look off Pietro’s face. Pietro clapped him on the shoulder again, once, and disappeared into the throng.

 

*

 

Another whore found him frowning, frustrated, into a cup in a shadowed corner, trying and failing to drown his sorrows. The rotgut he had been drinking on the ship must have built up a hell of a tolerance, because all he was feeling was tipsy.

“And what is a handsome fellow like you doing all by yourself over here?” the prostitute purred, insinuating herself into his space. He glanced at her and back at his cup, shrugged.

“Don’t much feel like company, I suppose,” he said.

“Oh, I know that look,” the woman said, the seduction in her tone lessening. “Your girl left you?”

Sebastian put his cup down and sighed. “Something like that.”

“Mmmhmm,” the woman hummed. She put a hand on her hip. “You wanna talk about it, or do you want to fuck it away?”

Sebastian’s head came up in surprise; even with prostitutes, he had rarely heard such things spoken so plainly. The woman looked back at him, challenging and questioning at once. That was familiar enough to make his throat clench for a moment: that, and her dark hair, long as it was. She could do, he supposed, even if her eyes were blue instead of the warm brown he longed for.

“How much?” he said.

“Thirty ducats,” she said.

He had kept eighty back from the pile he had given Abraham, and he was tired and angry and sick of heartache.

“All right, then,” he said. She smiled a sly, satisfied smile and climbed into his lap, winding her arms around his neck. She bent to kiss him.

Sebastian automatically held her, hands spreading and cupping to keep her in place. This was good, this was familiar: soft breasts pillowing against his chest, soft lips expertly teasing his apart. His eyes slid shut as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, as she drew back to set her teeth in his lower lip, soothe it with a swipe of her tongue. She was good, even for a professional. Despite his misgivings, his cock stirred with interest.

She drew back, laughing, as she felt the movement. “Come now,” she said, pulling him to his feet. Sebastian followed obediently as she led the way upstairs.

 

*

 

If he rutted extra hard into her mouth, fingers sinking into her dark hair, because of the fantasy on the ship—well, no one knew but him.

If he lost himself in her slick heat until he opened his eyes and remembered with a jolt where he was, if the glint in her eye was achingly familiar and his throat closed for a moment, the blackness in his chest pressing against his ribs and eyes, if he had to stop and breathe for a moment to get himself under control—well, no one was around to witness it.

If he cried out Antonio’s name as he spent himself deep inside her—well, perhaps she did not hear. Perhaps _he_ did not hear.

If he shook with sobs, after, and she rocked him and kissed the salt tears from his cheeks—well, she would not tell, not after the handsome tip he left.

And if he lingered in the hall a moment too long at the sound of a drawn-out, masculine moan, if his cock came to attention again with tears still drying on his face—well, only God knew for sure.

 


	6. Act II, Scene 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pietro is surrounded by idiots.

Pietro’s eyes were shrewd on Roderigo’s haggard face the next day. Marco actually blanched when he saw him.

“God’s teeth, what happened?” Marco demanded, grabbing Roderigo by the chin, tilting his face into the sunlight. Roderigo winced, jerked his head out of Marco’s grasp.

“Nothing,” he muttered, rubbing his chin and neck self-consciously. The stubble scraped his hand, glinted in the sun.

Marco remained where he was, belligerent. “Don’t look like nothing to me,” he said, all but putting his hands on his hips.

Roderigo shot Pietro a pleading glance, but Pietro only shrugged, a slight smile playing around his mouth.

“Then what does it look like?” Roderigo managed to snap tiredly. Marco still did not back down.

“Dunno,” Marco said, eyes tracking the puffiness to Roderigo’s eyes, the deep creases around his mouth, and the shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheekbones. “Like you haven’t slept or eaten in a week?”

Roderigo barked a laugh that had little humor in it. “We bunk next to each other, and obviously I jumped at the chance to eat something that doesn’t pass your incompetent cauldron, so clearly it can’t be that.”

Marco gave a self-effacing shrug; he was cook by default rather than skill, and everyone knew it.

“So if it’s not that, what is it?” Marco persisted. Roderigo groaned aloud, burying his face in his hands.

“What’s what, and why am I paying you lot if you’re just going to lay about gossiping like old women instead of doing your goddamn jobs?” Antonio said, climbing up the gangplank. Marco and Roderigo jumped; Pietro merely nodded. At the sound of Antonio’s voice, it seemed that every muscle in Roderigo’s body tightened, and what little color was left in his face fled. Marco looked at him and bit his lip.

“It’s nothing, sir,” Pietro said smoothly. “Marco and I were about to explain how to check the armory.”

“You have your own jobs, don’t you?” Antonio said jovially. “I’ll take Roderigo down and show him—“

“No,” Roderigo’s voice cut through Antonio’s words, soft but sharp. “Pietro will help, thanks.”

Antonio looked taken aback in a way Pietro had never seen before. Pietro’s mouth quirked, and Marco’s eyes darted between Roderigo and Antonio, trying to divine what was happening.

“Roderigo—“

“I will be quite fine with Pietro, captain,” Roderigo said stiffly, words clipped, an oddly noble cadence surfacing. Antonio’s eyes narrowed instinctively in response, and Pietro could practically see his hackles rising. Roderigo turned to Pietro. “The armory is this way, correct?”

Pietro’s eyes flit to Antonio and back. “Yes,” he told Roderigo. Roderigo nodded smartly and strode off, unaware or uncaring he was headed into the mess; Marco rolled his eyes and darted after him. Pietro looked at Antonio. “He will be fine, sir,” he said as gently as he dared. Antonio looked after Roderigo, a lost look on his face, before he pulled himself together.

“Of course,” Antonio said. He rubbed his hands together uncertainly. “Of course it will.”

 

*

 

“I am sorry,” Marco was saying when Pietro caught up with them. Roderigo’s spine was still rigid; his stance reminded Pietro of cat that slipped in water or some such and stalked off, offended. “I didn’t mean—“

Roderigo sighed, knuckling his eyes. His shoulders were still set in a way that made Pietro’s back ache in sympathy. “Yes, you did,” Roderigo said without heat.

Marco gave a small smile. “Yes, a bit,” he said. “But—“

“Pietro!” Roderigo called, spotting him, adding something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “praise God.” “What am I looking for?”

“A pot and a spoon, if Marco doesn’t get going,” Pietro said mildly. “Because he will be _out of a job_ ,” he added pointedly when Marco hesitated.

Marco paused for a moment more before flinging his arms around Roderigo in an embrace, giving him a few pounds on the back for good measure. Pietro nearly laughed at the bewildered expression on Roderigo’s face, but the humor quickly deserted him as Roderigo’s face crumpled, pain and loss writ clear as day. Pietro quickly averted his eyes.

Marco released Roderigo and bounded past Pietro, shooting him a bright grin as he passed. Pietro sighed and rolled his eyes. The lad was incorrigible. It did, though, give Roderigo a moment to collect himself.

“So,” Pietro said, moving up beside Roderigo next to the racks of weapons and giving his shoulder a friendly nudge with his own. “Take down a blade, and I’ll show you—“

A jaunty whistle accompanied footsteps above them, and Roderigo froze in the middle of reaching for a sword; there was no mistaking Antonio’s whistling, nor his good cheer. Roderigo’s face twisted, going pale and then flushed and then pale again. Pietro groaned internally.

“You know what, I’ll do it,” he said, pulling down a sword. “You look first around the hilt…”

 

*

Pietro was on the deck, supervising the sailors who were clambering around in the rigging and checking the sails, when the hairs on the back of his neck rose ever so slightly.

“Sir,” he said without bothering to turn around. Antonio—it had to be Antonio, no one else snuck up behind him as a matter of course—let out a small huff of breath.

“Pietro,” Antonio returned the greeting, moving up to Pietro’s side. He squinted up into the sails. “How goes?”

“Fine so far, sir,” Pietro said, puzzled. Nothing happened on the _Destiny_ without Antonio knowing about it; he should know exactly how it was.

“Good, good.” Antonio ran a distracted hand through his hair, looking around furtively. Mild dread gathered in Pietro’s stomach, and he almost groaned out loud as he realized what this was about. Instead, he began counting in his head. _Five, four, three_ …

“Have you seen Roderigo?” Antonio asked in a tone he probably thought was casual. Pietro did not roll his eyes, but it was a near thing.

“No, sir,” he said evenly, instead. “I think he went back shoreside.” Hearing silence greet this pronouncement, Pietro returned to spotting their sailors. He was taken aback, then, when a couple of minutes later he glanced back to where Antonio was and saw Antonio still standing there, staring at the docks.

“Sir?” Pietro said, prodding. Antonio came back to himself all at once, shaking himself in much the manner of a dog shaking off water.

“Right!” Antonio said, clapping his hands. “Tell me about the re-tarring,” as if he did not already know all about it and as if Pietro could not see it as the obvious distraction it was. Pietro sighed inwardly and complied.

 

*

 

Roderigo’s movements lost their stiffness, their angry edge, over the next few days. His words lost some of their clipped edge, and a line that had appeared between Antonio’s shoulders eased. Pietro even caught Roderigo humming as he polished their pistols.

Pistols Pietro was going to use to _shoot_ one of them if he caught Roderigo avoiding Antonio’s eyes and Antonio’s hurt look following Roderigo’s retreating back _one more goddamn time_.

 

*

 

“Pietro!” Antonio yelled, barging into his quarters without so much as a by-your-leave, hair askew and eyes wild. “Pietro, I need your help!”

Pietro muttered a curse and finished pulling his pants up, willing his heart rate back down. “Sir, we’ve talked about this,” he said, long-suffering. “One of the few perks of being your first mate is having a door, and I appreciate it being used.”

“No. What? It doesn’t matter,” Antonio said, running his fingers through his already-bedraggled hair. “Pietro. Focus.”

There was clearly no need to, since Antonio was announcing his need for help instead of bodily shoving Pietro on deck, as he would in a real emergency. Pietro focused instead on properly tying up his trousers.

“Pietro. Pietro, listen.” Antonio had his pleading eyes on, Pietro just knew it. He held back a sigh—he was getting lots of practice, lately—and turned to his captain. Indeed, Antonio’s eyes—eyes that Pietro had seen hard as flint, sharp as blades, blazing as heartfire—were limpid pools. Antonio only ever usually used those on a mark of some sort. Pietro let out his sigh his time.

“Yes, sir,” he said as placidly as he could manage. “What seems to be the problem?”

Antonio flung himself on Pietro’s bed, again without so much as a by-your-leave. Well, Pietro supposed, they _were_ pirates. “He won’t _look_ at me,” Antonio said in what he would doubtlessly claim to his dying day was not a wail even though it just as doubtlessly was.

Sometimes Pietro forgot just how young their fearless, often snappish, always fair captain was: other times, like this, he was strongly, inescapably reminded. Resisting the impulse to draw the problem out in his best patient, fatherly tones, Pietro elected to raise an eyebrow at the pitiful lump on his bed.

“Would you care to try that again, this time sounding like the adult I am assured you are?” Pietro said.

Antonio glared, but he also sat up and set his feet on the floor. He clasped his hands loosely together between his legs and tilted his head forward enough that his hair flopped in front of his face.

“Roderigo refuses to look at me,” he said. The whine was still there, but this attempt had enough of the brisk professionalism that Pietro expected of Antonio that he decided to let it go. “And I don’t know _why_.”

“Roderigo refuses to look at you and you don’t know why,” Pietro repeated back to him slowly, hoping to show him the ridiculousness of the statement. Antonio instead—of course, when did the man ever do anything logical or expected, Pietro thought moodily—nodded vigorously, throwing up his hands.

“Exactly! But a week ago I could go nowhere without his eyes following me, and now he is barely even on the ship at all!”

“Perhaps he is not yet used to the sea and wishes to spend more time a-land,” Pietro said cautiously, but Antonio was vigorously shaking his head before he even finished his sentence.

“You have seen him; his countenance is like that of a ghost since we put to port. He was only ever healthy on the sea. Could some ailment have befallen him? Perhaps Erasmo should see to him,” Antonio said, half-rising. Pietro moved to block him almost automatically.

“Do you know for certain it is an ailment?” he said. Antonio deflated a bit.

“What else could it be?” he said, spreading his hands in entreaty.

“Have you, I know not why, _asked_ him instead of fretting like an overbearing loon?” Pietro inquired, already sure of the answer.

Antonio’s face shuttered a bit, and Pietro’s heart sank correspondingly.

“How can I if he only ever brushes me off?” Antonio exploded, rising fully to his feet this time. He glared at Pietro, eyes flashing. “Tell me, sirrah, how then am I to inquire as to his health?”

Pietro scowled back. “I have heard tell a captain lives around here. Perhaps he can use his rank to obtain the answer you seek,” he snapped.

“Pulling rank has never helped,” Antonio said softly, and Pietro froze. They never spoke of _that_ time; this must be serious indeed. Antonio sat back down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands. “I do not wish to ruin this, Pietro.”

Pietro dearly wanted to ask what Antonio thought “this” was, but he held his tongue—he yet valued his hide. “Then don’t be a lackwit,” he said instead. “Difficult as it may be for you.”

Antonio barked out the expected laugh, and when he raised his head, his eyes had regained much of their usual sparkle.

“Aye, a masterly thought, sirrah,” he said. He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Ah, Pietro. You are right; I should let Roderigo come to me in his own time.” He nodded decisively, rising to his feet again.

“I did not—“ Pietro began to protest, but Antonio clapped him merrily on the shoulder.

“My thanks, as always, for your sound advice,” he said, and swept out of the cabin. Pietro stared after him.

“What,” he said with feeling. “The _fuck_.”


	7. Act III, Scene 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porn ahoy! (NSFW)
> 
> Chapter warnings: implied homophobia, internalized homophobia, internalized biphobia

All in all, they were in port for five days, repairing and maintaining the ship, haggling and trading for supplies, and, for Sebastian, avoiding Antonio whenever possible. Much if not all of the crew gathered at _The Spear Shaker_ each night, fuelling Sebastian’s suspicions that Antonio owned the establishment. Julio had to be bodily carried back to the ship after one night of particularly heavy drinking, and two of the sailors were cheated completely out of their gold at various card games. Antonio remained unmoved in the face of their complaints.

“I warned thee,” was all he said. The sailors, predictably, sulked, so Antonio bought the crew another round of drinks at _The_ _Spear Shaker_ to smooth ruffled feathers.

Two of the days were spent completely replacing the sails, after Antonio had multiple conferences with Pietro and Nigel about the expense of such an investment. All the crewmembers were pulled off of their regular duties for those two days, and in the bustle and demands of working nonstop sunup to sundown, Sebastian almost forgot to even look for Antonio, much less try to avoid him.

After they heaved-to and pushed off, Sebastian looked gratefully at the retreating mass of land. More of the strange tension he had carried since that first day slipped away as he turned to face the salt spray and sea breeze, leaving the port and its memories behind. Perhaps he really was destined to be a sailor—perhaps even a pirate. He felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth—the first in days, if he was going to be honest with himself (which he had no intention of doing).

“Roderigo! Isn’t there something you should be doing?”

“Doubtless!” he called back to Pietro. Pietro’s eyes had been on him more often of late, sharp and far too perceptive. Now they were hidden beneath the hand Pietro was using to shade his face from the glaring sun.

“Well, then, get to it, lad! You’re not being paid to laze about!”

“I’m not exactly pulling a steady salary,” Sebastian muttered as he pushed himself away from the rail. He ran a hand through his hair, relishing the feel of the sea breeze come back to tease it into unmanageable tufts. The city, despite being a port, had been close, claustrophobic in ways he hadn’t expected. The openness of the sea and sky was refreshing after so many days of buildings looming and cutting the fresh smell of brine and salt.

“Roderigo!”

“Going, sir,” Sebastian replied with a cheeky salute, jerked away from his thoughts. He trotted down the now-familiar path to the armory, intending to check the weaponry once more before going to see if Marco needed a hand.

Before he got there, though, a hand snaked out of a nearby doorway and yanked him inside the crew’s quarters, which were uncharacteristically empty. Sebastian let out what he would insist was a manful yelp at the strong grip. He drew a breath to castigate whoever it was that had unceremoniously pulled him (literally) from his duties.

He blew out the breath with a sigh, his protest dying in his throat, when he saw it was Antonio.

“We need to talk,” Antonio said. The words were firm, but his eyes darted away, uncharacteristically nervous.

“About what?” Sebastian snapped to cover the way his mouth was going dry. He most emphatically did not want to have this conversation.

Antonio cleared his throat, looking about as uncomfortable as Sebastian felt. “Us,” he said, gesturing to them with the hand that still held fast to Sebastian. The motion drew his gaze to that fact, and he dropped Sebastian’s wrist like it was afire. Sebastian tried not to take offense.

“What about us?” Sebastian said, regretting it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Asking questions would only prolong this torture; he should have said, _no, everything’s fine, we don’t need to talk, goodbye_ and left.

Antonio looked, if possible, even more uncomfortable than before.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, the words dragged unwillingly from his mouth. He cast his eyes upward for a moment, as if he were cursing someone or something.

Sebastian twitched and immediately cursed himself silently; the movement in itself was confirmation. “What makes you think that?” he said. When in doubt, deflect the question to keep the asker off-balance; he had learned that at his father’s knee. Apparently the strategy worked as well for pirates as it did for dukes.

“’sbones, Roderigo, how long are you going to keep this up?” Antonio’s mouth had an unhappy slant to it, and hurt lurked in his dark eyes. His expression was tight.

“Keep what up?” Sebastian said automatically, but he held up his hands as Antonio tensed further and his mouth turned down more. “All right, all right, yes, I have been avoiding you.” He hesitated and then tacked on a “sir,” just to be on the safe side, but that made Antonio frown harder.

Antonio crossed his arms. He could loom convincingly when he wanted to, though he had never done so to Sebastian before. Huh. Sebastian put that thought aside to contemplate at another time.

“Why?” Antonio said, a plaintive edge to it he likely hadn’t intended. Sebastian blew out a sigh and scrubbed his face with his hands.

“Can we sit?” he said, motioning at the bunks around them. Antonio made a face—well, not all of the sailors could have fancy cabins, Sebastian would have said at any other time—and perched gingerly on the edge of someone’s trunk. Sebastian took up a spot on the storage chest he shared with Lorenzo, opposite.

“Remember our first day in port? When we all met up at _The Spear Shaker_?”

Antonio frowned. “To be honest, they all blur together.”

Sebastian knew exactly what he meant. How was it that land, with all its different buildings and people, could seem more uniform than the blue expanses of the sky and the ever-changing sea? How could Sebastian go back to land, after this? How could he want to?

A gentle tug at Sebastian’s ear brought him back to the present, and he refocused to find Antonio’s expression had cleared, replaced by something achingly soft. He was touching Sebastian’s earring, the match to his own, gently, so gently.

“Ah, yes,” Antonio said. “I remember now. The day I gave you this.”

Anger unfurled in Sebastian’s stomach. _Aye, that day_ , he wanted to scream at Antonio. _That day, when you asked me to show I belonged and I said yes_ _. That day, when you looked at me like you’re looking at me now, watched me as I sealed my place with you with blood and flesh and yet went off with those two women. How can you look that—that_ tender _about that day when you claimed me as yours and then_ abandoned _me_?

“That night,” Sebastian croaked, clawing the words from his throat, around the darkness seething in his chest. “That night, I—”

“What, Roderigo?” Antonio said quietly.

Sebastian looked away, face flaming. He forced the words out. “You _left_ me.”

“I—what?”

Sebastian scrambled for words that made him sound less like a petulant child. “You—the women—”

Antonio frowned for a moment, but then his face cleared. “Ah, yes, Bessie and Cath,” he said, smiling in remembrance. Sebastian took a moment to calculate exactly how much trouble he would be in if he punched his captain in the face. “Lovely girls, both, and very skilled…what were we talking about?”

“Nothing,” Sebastian said, panic scrabbling at his throat. “Nothing, never mind…”

“Roderigo.” Antonio’s voice was still quiet, but it held a tone of command that Sebastian couldn’t shake off. “What happened that night?”

Sebastian steadfastly looked anywhere but Antonio. “I—I had sex with a prostitute.”

There was silence for a moment. Sebastian couldn’t look at Antonio.

“Good for you, Roderigo,” Antonio said, his confusion plain.

Sebastian ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “No, you don’t understand—I _had sex with a prostitute_.”

“So you had sex with a prostitute,” Antonio said blankly. “Why does that change anything between us?”

Sebastian threw the nearest object, which was, thankfully, a balled-up stocking. “Because I wanted it to be sex with you!” he yelled and promptly turned a brilliant crimson.

A wave of emotions that would have been comical any other time washed over Antonio’s face: shock, confusion, understanding, and finally, a pleased hunger that made Sebastian’s stomach squirm.

“Oh?” he said, but it wasn’t a question. Sebastian tore his gaze away, stared fixedly at the floor.

“I should not have told you,” Sebastian said dully. “I know nothing can come of it. It is wrong, I know, I _know_. I just—that’s why.”

Antonio stood and made his way to Sebastian, a kind of liquid prowl to his step, halting a hands-breadth from where Sebastian still sat on the storage chest. Sebastian looked unwillingly up at Antonio, at the way his eyes had gone molten and the hurt had vanished from his dark eyes.

“Has no one explained to you how things work around here?” Antonio said.

“Only a hundred times,” Sebastian muttered resentfully. Antonio smiled crookedly.

“I meant about sex,” he said. He reached out and pulled gently at a tuft of Sebastian’s hair, twining it around his fingers. His smile turned smoky, a razor edge of danger to it; there was something wrong with Sebastian that that made his cock twitch in his trousers. “We’re a ship full of lads, and time in port with willing women is sporadic and short. You never know when you have to flee in the middle of the night, after all.”

“That was _one time_ ,” Sebastian said. He had not been there, but it was a joke repeated often enough on the ship the he felt like he had.

Antonio’s smile softened, but he continued as if Sebastian had not spoken, “So we take comfort when and where we can.” He held Sebastian’s eyes steadily. “And with whomever we wish. God’s law does not apply on my ship, nor do any laws of man.”

“What?” Sebastian said, small.

“The _Destiny_ ’s law is my law,” Antonio said, his voice rumbling in his chest. Sebastian had never wanted to kiss anyone so badly. “And my law holds, when it comes to sex and love, only that both parties must be fully aware and willing.” He paused, the air of authority falling away. “You really haven’t noticed Marco and Julio?”

Sebastian’s head was whirling. “What?” he said again.

“They chose each other as partners—hell, I don’t know, a year ago? Haven’t touched anyone else since. No one minds; more for the rest of us, eh?”

“I—” Sebastian faltered. Jokes that had never made sense were piecing themselves together, along with the way Marco and Julio seemed joined at the hip most days, how they would both disappear at the same times and come back disheveled and grinning.

“Have to keep up appearances in port, of course,” Antonio said, his tone darkening. His hand dropped from Sebastian’s hair, and he shook his head, crossing his arms. “Hard to believe anyone cares what sorts of _sins_ ”—he spat the word—“we scurrilous pirates will get up to, but it turns out some of our trade partners draw harsh lines in the sand.” His mouth pursed unhappily.

“So Cath and Bessie…”

“If I had not gone with them, I would have claimed you right then and there,” Antonio said softly. “And I knew I could not, not with the expectations of me a-land, not when I knew not what you would say. And so I took two to spite those who would spit on me, to skirt the edges of what they deem proper. They have no right to dictate whom I can love, or how.”

Sebastian scraped his voice out of his throat. “Love?”

Antonio looked at him with the same expression that had lurked in his eyes since their raid on Angelo’s ship. Sebastian felt his face heat, his heart flutter.

“Aboard, no one cares,” Antonio said. “But I did not know…you were grief-stricken, rightly so, and you needed time. And still I did not know where your interests lay.”

The weight of revelations and so much bare honesty was pressing on Sebastian’s chest, demanding a truth in return.

“I kissed you,” he told the floor.

There was a gratifying pause as Antonio rocked back on his heels. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you kissed me,” Sebastian amended. “But I kissed you back.”

“I think I would _remember_ that—oh. Oh!” Antonio pointed an accusing finger at Sebastian. “You lied to me!”

Sebastian shrugged a shoulder and half-smiled. “Pirate,” he said.

Antonio stared at him for a moment, and then delighted laughter bubbled out of him.

“Pirate, indeed,” he said, and surged forward, broad arms caging Sebastian in. His lips hovered just above Sebastian’s, warm breath puffing against Sebastian’s mouth.

“So, Roderigo,” he rumbled. “What prize would you claim?”

Sebastian’s heart was pounding. This had to be a dream, it had to, but to hell with it, he _wanted_.

“This,” he said, and crashed his mouth against Antonio’s, slid his arms around Antonio’s broad body as he’d been wanting to for weeks. Antonio made a startled noise and pulled him close even as he drew his head back to change the angle of their mouths. He tried to press their mouths back together sweetly, but Sebastian had waited too long for this to take it slow and gentle. He bit down on Antonio’s lip, pushed his tongue into his mouth and stroked the ridged roof of Antonio’s blazing, wet mouth. Antonio made a sound deep in his chest that Sebastian immediately wanted to hear again, opened his mouth wider. Their stubble scraped and caught, a rough counterpoint to the slide of their tongues and lips.

Antonio’s hands were roaming, pausing here at the curve of ribs, here at the juncture between neck and back, staying politely above Sebastian’s waist. Sebastian had no such compunctions and went straight for what he wanted: he grabbed Antonio’s buttocks with both hands, kneading and squeezing. Antonio’s hips jerked forward, rolling against Sebastian, and they moaned into each other’s mouths. Antonio cradled Sebastian’s head between his huge hands as he plundered his mouth thoroughly, leaving Sebastian gasping and harder than he had thought possible, hips hitching forward involuntarily as Antonio thrust one of his impossibly muscled thighs between Sebastian’s.

The broke apart for air, Antonio’s eyes glassy and dark with desire, Sebastian’s hair sticking up from where Antonio had been clutching it. They looked at each other for a moment. It was beginning to dawn on Sebastian through his fog of lust and delirious joy that this was no dream, that they could have been doing this _the whole time_.

“You mean to say,” Sebastian panted, the words catching on a whine as Antonio hitched his leg higher, making Sebastian ride it. “You have desired me all this time and said _nothing_?”

Antonio mouthed at Sebastian’s throat, dropped his head to Sebastian’s shoulder and groaned as Sebastian experimentally rolled his hips forward. “I-I told you,” he ground out. “I knew not—“

“You could have _asked_ , you ass!” Sebastian yelled, pushing Antonio away. He took a moment to admire the view: Antonio looked _wrecked_ , mouth swollen and cock jutting proudly, pushing at his trousers.

“And what was I to say?” Antonio shouted back, and oh, oh, he was beautiful, fire flashing in his dark eyes and desire still written in every line of his body. “Oh, hello, Roderigo, nice work you’re doing there, fancy a shag later?”

“Why not?” Sebastian said, pulling himself up to match Antonio’s height. He distantly heard footsteps rapidly retreating in the hall. “Though I am sure you could put it better. I am told you are quite the master of seduction.”

Antonio’s eyes glittered, and Sebastian’s heart tripped.

“I will show _you_ master of seduction,” he growled, and that shouldn’t have worked, it shouldn’t, but ‘sblood Antonio was all but attacking Sebastian’s mouth with his and was _picking Sebastian bodily up_. Sebastian automatically wrapped his legs around Antonio’s unfairly slim waist, cock perking up at the combination of renewed friction and the sign of Antonio’s strength. Antonio carried him— _carried him_ —to the wall and all but slammed him against it, kissing him the whole time. Sebastian writhed against him, shame falling away at the sensation of Antonio’s hot, muscled body pressed against his.

Antonio’s shirt had rucked up during his little stunt, and Sebastian slid his hands under its hem, sighing involuntarily at the sensation of warm, bare skin beneath his newly-calloused hands. Antonio was back to ravaging Sebastian’s throat with teeth and suction, and he shivered at Sebastian’s touch, sending a thrill through Sebastian in turn. His hips rolled insistently against Sebastian’s, and it was easy to match his rhythm, to loop his arms under Antonio’s shoulders and coax his mouth back up to his, to lick and kiss and rub, feeling the solid wood of the wall against his back and the steady heat of Antonio along his front.

Antonio eased back and tugged at Sebastian’s shirt. “Off, off,” he commanded. Sebastian might have teased him to being reduced to one-syllable words if he had not been feeling quite so breathless himself. Antonio helped Sebastian free of his loose shirt groaned appreciatively in his chest at the sight. Sebastian was blushing all the way down his chest, he had to be. His skin pebbled with combination of cooler air and the weight of Antonio’s gaze, and he jumped as Antonio bent his head to lick at a rapidly hardening nipple. His hips jerked up of their own accord, a high keen escaping him, and Antonio sighed, a warm gust of air onto Sebastian’s skin.

“You like that,” he said, voice rough with desire. Before Sebastian could nod emphatically, before he could divest Antonio of his shirt or grab Antonio’s head and seal their mouths together again, Antonio dipped his hand lower, freed first Sebastian’s, then his, cock from their trousers and took them both in hand. Sebastian’s head thunked back against the wall, his eyes rolling up at the sensation, as they both groaned.

Their combined excitement was enough to ease the way as they thrust up into Antonio’s hand, but Sebastian caught and held Antonio’s gaze, brought a hand to his mouth and deliberately laved it, just to watch Antonio’s pupils blow impossibly wider. He added his hand to Antonio’s, their callouses and Antonio’s rings adding just this side of too much friction. It was like his fantasy the night of the raid on Angelo’s ship, but this was better, more solid, more real—his fantasy hadn’t been able to account for the sounds their skin made, the sharp scents, the breathless sounds coming from Antonio.

Antonio felt huge alongside him: shorter, perhaps, but he more than made up for it in girth. Antonio rested his forehead on Sebastian’s shoulder again, heaving in huge gulps of air and watching the movement of their hands together, the cant of their hips. Sebastian added a twist at the end, just a small flick of his wrist that he himself liked, and that wrenched a whine out of Antonio’s throat. Sebastian smiled, vindicated.

“Antonio,” Sebastian breathed out, and Antonio hummed in response, returning to play with Sebastian’s pebbled nipples, all teeth and tongue and suction. Sebastian’s back arched without his permission/instinctively, his mouth open. Antonio turned his head to mutter into Sebastian’s ribs, warm puffs of breath pressing the words into his skin.

Heat was pooling at the base of his spine, and their excitement was pumping out freely, coating their hands and wills. Sebastian’s back was going to be a mess of scratches and bruises tomorrow from the way he kept rubbing up against the wall, but that hardly mattered now, with the constant, choked-off murmuring from Antonio and how uncomplicatedly _good_ this felt. Their hands moved faster and faster, heat and urgency building, slick sounds tangling in the air with their heavy breaths and sharp grunts.

Antonio was the first to find his release; he threw his head back, almost smacking Sebastian in the nose, and groaned loudly, his cock twitching, splattering Sebastian’s bare chest and his own free-hanging shirt. Sebastian tried to focus, tried to memorize the frankly amazing look on Antonio’s face right now, but he was so close, so _close_. Antonio was still coming, hips hitching and cock twitching. His hand clenched spastically on their cocks, and Sebastian keened. Antonio mouthed over his throat, returned to his lips.

“Come on, Roderigo,” he said, voice low and rough, batting away Sebastian’s hand as he frantically tried to strip his cock, keeping his own next to Sebastian’s in his fist even though it was doubtless oversensitive. “Come for me.”

With a few more thrusts into that tight circle Sebastian did, a moan wrenched from deep in his chest, adding another layer to Antonio’s shirt and softening cock.

For a while they simply clutched each other and panted. At length they began to find their way back from that hazy sphere of ecstasy. Antonio carefully settled them on the ground on top of his discarded shirt, curled around each other and still trembling with pleasure.

“Well,” Sebastian said finally, unable to take the silence any longer.

“Well,” Antonio echoed, no inflection that Sebastian could read in his voice. He was behind Sebastian, broad arms holding him close, so Sebastian could not hope to scrutinize his expression.

Sebastian squirmed, instinctively scratching at the remains of his pleasure on his chest. His thin shirt did little to protect delicate skin from the floor, and any of the crew could come in at any moment. Antonio’s arms tightened around him, and Antonio dipped his head to nose behind Sebastian’s ear, to breathe in a deep lungful.

There was silence, the scent of sweat and sex still hanging heavy in the air.

“So, is that it, then?” Sebastian said. Antonio had had his bit of fun, didn’t he? Gotten Sebastian out of his system. Sebastian didn’t dare look at Antonio’s face, see the finality there; didn’t dare show Antonio the naked want that was surely written on his own.

Antonio let go, and the loss of his presence was like the loss of a limb. Sebastian had to turn now, had to look twist around to face the guarded look on Antonio’s face, the face that had been slack-jawed with pleasure mere minutes earlier. Sebastian felt sick.

“Do you want it to be?” Antonio asked carefully.

“Well,” Sebastian said again, since that seemed to be the word of this…encounter. The voice of Father Matteo threatened again, a storm on the horizon.

 _‘Sblood_ , Sebastian thought, _to hell with it, even if it’s to hell with me_. Antonio had shown him he could weather storms, after all.

“No, actually,” Sebastian said. The tension in the room broke, and Sebastian looked Antonio in the eye just in time to see Antonio’s expression lighten, buoyed by something that looked like hope. “I still have much to learn about loving men, after all.”

Antonio smile was like the dawn breaking.

“Fortunately, I have plenty of knowledge to share, and I have a private room with a proper bed and everything,” Antonio said.

“Oh do you now,” Sebastian said, helplessly returning his smile. He accepted Antonio’s hand and let Antonio haul him to his feet. Antonio pulled him close, one hand protectively, intimately drawing him in by the small of his back.

“Aye,” Antonio said in his ear, husky. Sebastian shivered.

“Well, then, sirrah,” he said, raising his chin. He watched Antonio’s eyes sparkle in heated amusement as Sebastian tracked the quirk of his lips. “As it seems I have much to learn, lead on.”


End file.
